About Us

The Calendar Family is a group of related people who have brain-stormed and worked together to produce a calendar every year since 1987. The Calendar Family is a family business that has grown from being one couple with a calendar to a family business with other related products.

As the family and the calendar business have grown so has the interest in the family and their lifestyle, together with interest in other things they do and produce. People writing to them to order calendars or chat about island life gave them the name "The Calendar Family".

Just as a family starts with one couple so this family had its beginnings with Nick and Fiona Maillis. Nick is a Bahamian fisherman who needed a calendar to track the relationship between moon phases and schools of fish. He asked his wife Fiona to draw one up for him; she decided to make it look attractive and bought a kids water-colour box from the food-store and painted a map of the Bahamas for the top with a frame for the bottom grid. Friends in the publishing business urged them on to produce 12 more months and to have them printed for the local tourist market. The Bahamian Calendar 1987 hit the market in 1986 and though it sold, there were several thousand left over. Discouraged, Nick and Fiona did not produce one for 1988 but as stores and customers kept asking for another calendar they worked hard to produce one for 1989 and have done so every year since.

Meanwhile their own family was growing together with their faith that God who was blessing them with children would also bless them with the means to feed and clothe them. As all six children have grown and shown an interest they have been encouraged to participate in the production and business of the calendar. They have painted, taken photographs, collected recipes, cooked, researched holidays, sketched scenes, chatted to locals, designed the look of the calendar, edited, proof-read, distributed, mailed, answered phones and done accounting learning many aspects of business and life. From the oldest child, now 34, married and with his own son, to the youngest of 23, they competently contribute to the family business.

The production of this web site is the result of a generation which is internet savvy. Anthony, the oldest son, is taking the business into the modern world of computers with an expanding range of products to offer e-commerce. Anthony and his wife Mattaniah are the next generation "family" with their son born in 2011. Nick and Fiona still have problems with the fax machine!

Some of the new products are due to the creative minds of the two girls, Nerissa and Oceanna, who saw the need for other tourist related items such as magnets, cards and prints. They love the hands-on crafting process and expresses this also through their own designs and their table-scaping. The boys on the other hand are full of adventure. They get their hands on raw nature and into the island lifestyle. The fishing adventures of Luke "The Duke", the sailing ventures of "Capt." Theron and the stories of "Hog-man" Thaddeus have fascinated many people who have come to know us, which is the reason we are working on the book about island life.

Many customers contributed over the years to The Bahamian Calendar, become friends, and watched the family grow; they have done this out of genuine love and not with any business expectation. Many friends have been involved in the business process and helped it to grow along the way; this they have done without expectation of a "kick-back" or a "pay-cheque". Because of this, on a wider scale, they are all part of the "Calendar Family".

Family is at the center of our life; it is the core of our business. We <3 Family!