Christmas Day at Rafters – 2013
By Margaret Sheard
Photos by Chris Elliott
Christmas Day 2013 dawned bright and sunny and after a leisurely morning opening presents and getting ourselves ready, we made our 
way up to Rafters Restaurant in Ozanköy for our Christmas Day lunch.
There was a lovely atmosphere when we entered, with lots of glittering decorations, Christmas tree and a log fire burning merrily away and many people laughing, chatting and wishing Happy Christmas to everyone. Abbas and his staff were as usual darting here and there to make sure everyone was happy. There are always a lot of familiar faces at this type of event and we were pleased to see many people we know who live here in North Cyprus.
We sat down at our allocated table and noted the little extras which had been provided, such as party hats, crackers, party poppers etc. The Christmas Day menu was a 4-course meal starting with soup and then a choice of starters, main course and dessert followed by coffee and brandy and a mince pie. I’m not quite sure what happened to the mince pies as they didn’t appear at the end of the meal but we were all much too full anyway. In fact I think there were a lot of happy dogs and cats later in the day judging by th
e number of “doggy bags” appearing.
It was a very jolly crowd of people that day and one group had a huge bag of silly hats which kept appearing during the afternoon, which made for a lot of laughter.
We normally go to Rafters for Christmas Day as it is very near to where we live so we were not surprised to see Mary, another regular Christmas Day visitor, who celebrates her birthday on 25th December, so it is always a very special occasion for her. This year was no exception and
later in the afternoon a large birthday cake appeared, complete with candles.
We left at about 6pm and the merriment was still in full swing so we were at the end of yet another brilliantly successful Christmas Day celebration by Abbas and his staff and now we have the New Year’s Eve event to look forward to when Andrew and Glen of Andrew sings….. will be entertaining us at what is sure to be another memorable evening at Rafters.
