MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (AP) – Many miles from home, Daniel Dyer is left with only memories of Christmas in New Orleans, of the celebratory bonfires and the towering oak trees festooned with decorative lights.

Dyer and others displaced by Hurricane Katrina are facing a holiday season that is hardly routine. A 61-year-old chef who ran a Cajun restaurant in New Orleans, Dyer is bracing for his first Christmas outside the Big Easy in more than 30 years.

“When we left down there, everybody went zoom’ – it was like an explosion, people going to Texas and Oklahoma and Colorado and Tennessee,” said Dyer, enjoying a morning smoke Wednesday inside an apartment shared with roommates.

Dyer and his longtime business partner ended up in September on a plane bound for Rhode Island, where they were placed in a former U.S. Navy housing complex. Now he prepares food for local parties on a freelance basis and is planning a traditional Christmas meal that he says may include turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and yams.

The hurricane that pummeled the Gulf Coast region months ago disrupted traditions, split apart family and friends and is forcing evacuees to celebrate holidays in new ways, with new companions and in faraway places.

Jerome Cummings, 51, who came by himself to the Ocean State, said he was invited to spend Christmas at the home of a local pastor he befriended after arriving here. It’s a startling change for a man who routinely celebrated Christmas with his family back home.

“It’s a very new experience because it’s my first time ever leaving Louisiana for any occasion,” said Cummings, who worked as a house cleaner before the hurricane.

“I’m not among family, it’ll be a new experience in that department,” he added.

James Hytt, 51, who operated a dough mixer in an industrial bakery, said Monday he wasn’t accustomed to big Christmas celebrations in New Orleans and didn’t seem fazed by spending the holiday here.

“Sometimes I spend it alone, sometimes people have me over,” said Hytt, who also came by himself to Rhode Island and said he would prefer not to return to New Orleans. “I’m pretty used to just sitting back and watching the old movies and drinking my eggnog.”

The Salvation Army has donated food baskets to Katrina evacuees still staying in the Middletown housing complex, said Rose Adams, a program manager for the Rhode Island Housing Resources Commission.

Sitting in a T-shirt before a cluttered table bearing a white Johnson & Wales University coffee mug and a small bowl of butter, among many other items, Dyer reflected on the tumult of the year.

His house in New Orleans “ain’t no more,” and he was forced to evacuate the city. He didn’t know he was heading to Rhode Island until after he was on the plane. Once here, he said, one of his roommates passed away.

Dyer said he enjoyed the Christmas caroling in New Orleans, the imposing bonfires and the big trees illuminated for the holidays. He described New Orleans as a “beautiful city” and said he would need to go back to take care of some personal business. But he said he also likes living in Rhode Island and even had a dream that he would never leave here.

“If I could stay up here during the summertime and go down there and stay in the wintertime, that’d be top drawer right there,” Dyer said, breaking into a hearty chuckle.

AP-ES-12-21-05 1911EST