Gazing out of the kitchen window, Sonia remembered another item to add to her Christmas grocery list. She wiped her hands on the dish towel and picked up her pen. At the bottom of the list she added sugar. Such a basic ingredient to have omitted but better to have remembered now than in the midst of preparing the cassava pie, elbow deep in butter and all of those eggs. Sonia closed her eyes and anticipated the aroma of warm cassava pie cooling on the counter, a treat for visitors. Open house meant welcoming friends and relatives from as far away as St. Davids. She chuckled to herself. Well, that seemed far away for small Bermuda. Her mind then drifted to her daughter, Rachel.“She’s a Londoner now,” Sonia mused, dangling the pen between her fingers.She could almost feel the last hug she gave her daughter over three years ago as Rachel embarked on her academic journey in London. Of course, there would be seasonal breaks back home in Bermuda filled with summer employment, frantic social activity and weekends at the beach before the usual flurry of activity preceding the return to the airport to catch the evening British Airways flight to Gatwick. Eventually, the Bermuda visits would become less frequent as London began to feel like home. Phone calls would replace airline tickets, punctuated by occasional e-mail messages.Recalling Rachel’s hesitant voice during the last telephone call, Sonia blinked away a few tears threatening to emerge.“Um, I can’t come home for Christmas this year ...” Rachel quietly told her mother.“I can send you a ticket. I always seem to find the money.”“Seriously, Mom, it’s okay. I’m going to my friend Janna’s house for Christmas dinner. I’m supposed to bring an apple pie. They call it a Bramley pie.”The decision had been made. Plans had been set into motion. This, Sonia realised, was a courtesy call. The inevitable first Christmas without her daughter had come sooner than expected.“Well, if that’s what you want. As long as you’ll be okay,” Sonia replied weakly.“Will you be okay?” Rachel asked.Later, Sonia pondered on Rachel’s question, ‘Will you be okay?’ and remembered having a similar conversation with her mother, Sylvia, 20 years earlier, after telling her that she would not spend Christmas in Boston that year. Sonia, her husband and their new baby would have their first Christmas in Bermuda as a family instead. Sonia had excitedly told her mother of her plans to make cassava pie using the traditional family recipe. She had gushed about their plans to buy a tree that would fill their small apartment with a forest scent. She would decorate it with shiny balls, tinsel, lights and fake snow until it sparkled in the darkness. Happily chattering about the dinner menu and of anticipation of following the Gombeys on Boxing Day, she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Had her mother felt the same pang of bittersweet disappointment, realising her daughter had her own life now? Coming “home” was optional. A new chapter had begun in the book of generations.That night, before Sonia drifted to sleep inspiration struck, and the next morning she telephoned Sylvia and Rachel to share her revelation.* * *Like a child anxiously awaiting the delights of Christmas morning, Sonia rhythmically drums her fingers against the kitchen counter surface. It is almost 8 o’clock. It’s almost Christmas.In Boston a family gathers around a computer screen. Sylvia puts her finger to her lips to quiet her grandchildren while the rest of the family pretends they’re not just as excited. It’s almost 7 o’clock. It’s almost Christmas.In London, Rachel splashes water on her face and combs her hair. Normally she would complain about Mom’s ideas, but this time she detects flutters of excitement in her stomach. It is almost midnight. It’s almost Christmas.Finally, the soft, familiar chime broke through the thick haze of expectation, amplified against the night stillness. First, Rachel joined the call, pretending to be slightly annoyed about having to stay awake until midnight just for a Skype call.“Merry Christmas, Mom,” she mutters as if the sacrifice had been as costly as the spice gifts offered to the baby Jesus.The Boston part of the clan joins the call boisterously, with more noise than one would expect from only eight people. They peer into the computer which gives the closest to the camera, little Danielle, a cartoonish look to her onlookers.“Tell Danielle she doesn’t need to be so close to the computer!” Rachel chuckles in spite of herself. “Merry Christmas, everyone! Let’s get this show on the road, Mom.”“Merry Christmas, everyone! Well, since we can’t all be together, I thought we could have a virtual Christmas you know, make use of this technology that’s all around us. Who wants to give their ‘gift’ first?” Sonia asks, wiggling her fingers as quotation marks.“We do! We do!” Danielle shouts.“Okay, Team Boston. Rachel misses Bermuda this Christmas although she could have come home ”“Mother!”“ so how are you going to give her a piece of a Bermuda Christmas?”Sylvia sits forward and looks into the computer as if searching for faces and smiles.“Well, I just want to say that I’m so excited that we’re all together on Christmas, even though we live miles and miles apart. Thank you, Sonia, for this idea and ”“Seriously, Mom,” Sonia interrupts. “It’s midnight for Rachel. How much more of her attention do you think we’re going to get?”Sylvia set her lips and looks slightly affronted.“Now you know where Rachel gets it from,” Grandfather snickers mischievously, poking Sylvia.“As I was saying, this whatever we’re doing gave me a nice opportunity to talk to my grandchildren about my childhood and living in Bermuda,” she continues. “To share my fond memories. So we are we are going to sing and have a story, which is my favourite part of Christmas.”Cueing the others to start, she seems pleased to be directing her family choir. After a shaky start, soon their voices blended melodiously as they had practised. Sonia and Rachel join the choir using the simple hand motions the children learned in Sunday School.“Away in a mangerNo crib for a bedThe little Lord JesusLaid down his sweet head ...”Sylvia follows the group song with the story of Jesus’ birth from the book of Luke.Next, the focus shifts to Rachel.“What gift did you bring?” Sonia asks.“What else?” Rachel laughs. “Food!”A good-natured, collective groan ripples across the time zones. Grandfather chuckles and taps on the computer screen.“So, Kiddo, how do you propose we’re supposed to eat this food of yours?”“You’re not!” Her voice lowers and becomes serious. “I was telling Mom that I was bringing a Bramley pie to Christmas dinner at my friend’s house. But after we decided to do this ‘whatever we’re doing’ as Grandmother calls it, I thought about bringing them something traditional, something Bermudian and I hope it came out okay.”Rachel carefully holds up a large pan and removes the foil cover.“Ta-da! Cassava pie! How did I do it, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.” Rachel puts on an apron that says ‘Kiss the Cook’ and powders her cheeks with flour for effect.“What a labour of love this project has been,” she says in a comic, high-pitched voice. Beating all those eggs. Plus a whole pound of butter! Can you imagine if it hadn’t come out right? But it did! Look. Golden brown and the smell perfect.”After discussion about the family cassava pie recipe, their chatter subsides and is replaced by music. The recording of the familiar drum beat provides the background for Sonia’s imitative Gombey dance. The colourful conical hat sways precariously with every slice of her axe at imaginary targets. Overlaying the steady, rhythmic drumming, the troupe leader’s piercing whistle signals changes in Sonia’s actions motions she had studied and practised and that she now self-consciously performs before her family in jerky movements. Soon her intercontinental spectators become participants, joining the frenzy like children on Front Street during the Bermuda Day parade. Sonia’s borrowed jewelled cape becomes a blur of tassels and glass, her feet pulsing to a crescendo until its sudden, dramatic conclusion.Sonia feigns disappointment. “Hey, nobody threw money!”“Who could put a price on a performance like that?” Grandfather quips.***Rachel wiped her hands on the dish towel and turned to acknowledge her daughter’s excited plea to help with the cassava pie.As the bells of the Cathedral in the distance marked the hour with a Christmas carol, Rachel gently guided her through the recipe, just as her mother had when she was the same age.“She’s a Bermudian now”, she mused, smiling.