Like small Catholic developing nations everywhere, Jesus is big in Costa Rica. So his birthday next week is cause for celebration and pageantry. Huge is too small a word. In fact, there are fireworks going off down in the valley as I write this. (Fireworks are legal here.)
In the states, we shake our heads sadly when Kmart puts on their Christmas push before Thanksgiving. Here, store decorations are up mid-October, before Halloween. Which is NOT big here, though steeped in scary legends. And, with no Thanksgiving, there is nothing to get in the way of a full-out Christmas sales event for the preceding two and a half months.
We drive past this spot frequently. It’s usually an empty dirt patch… then one day, this appeared. Just in my daily life, I pass by five roadside stores just like this that appeared overnight, all selling tons of the same junk. Clearly, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Costa Rica! It’s all mostly yard decorations… creches made out of sticks and blow-up santas. Tons of other necessary paraphernalia… the stuff you can’t do without to celebrate the birth of Jesus properly.
On closer examination, perhaps paraphernalia is not an event-appropriate word. Seeing as how Joseph and Mary weren’t married yet. We’ll have to call that stuff something else, something simple like stuff. We don’t have any of that stuff this year, not a tree, not a ball, not a gift, not a light, not an icicle. We are going Jewish this year. The Bortmans told us how: Chinese food and a movie.
Of course, we’ll have to cook our own Chinese food and watch a movie on TV because NOTHING will be open. You can’t buy any stuff that day… That’s how big Christmas is in Costa Rica!
I’m sorry to hear you’re skipping Christmas. Guess your trip sucked out the joys of Christmas decor.
Maybe next year.
Unfortunately, I’ve never warmed to the joys of Christmas decor. I love seeing the lights and the pomp, driving around key west before the holidays. There are some homeowners who are completely over the top when it comes to the joys of Christmas decor and that is fun to witness.
But it’s always been an ambivalent holiday for me. It’s for children – my happiest Christmas memory ever was when Mo was two. He happened to be standing there when we plugged in the tree for the first time that year. There was a moment of silence and then he said “wow.” That was so worth it!
For now, it’s a relief to not have to do the whole nine yards. Or even two. We will enjoy it together, buy the boys some candy which is still their favorite present, and hang out. We will attend a Christmas mass on Christmas day… I’m sure that will be beautiful. After Christmas, when the sales are on, we are going to buy a Wii as our family gift – we are all looking forward to that!!!
Sally,
One of the things I used to like about CR (Guatemala, too) was the non-commercial ways in which Christmas used to be celebrated, with very different traditions than what I was used to back home in Florida. One of the more remarkable things were all the Portales, or elaborate Christmas scenes each household would assemble and display in one of their rooms in their home. The Portal always consisted of a manger scene with the three wisemen en route, but then there were lots of other things added to the Portal, like in one case an airstrip with little plastic jets lanidng, or maybe circus animals. Each year a family’s Portal would become slightly more elaborate, trying to outdo itself from the previous year’s display.
Then in the mid-90s I was visiting in Jjuly/August and one day went into Universal in San José Centro and there discovered a huge display of artificial Christmas trees, ornaments, bows, and gift wrap. I knew that was the beginning of the end of some of the old traditions, alas.
And all along I thought that I by moving there might escape most of the commercialism of the season. Well, thanks to TV, I can forget that idea.
Well, I guess you can’t really blame the Ticos, etc., for wanting to emulate the developed world. Too bad that emulation is commercialism, though…
Bah, Humbug, & Similar Salutations of the Season!
(But Cheers!, really.)
Paul
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Thank you for sharing all that – we had a good laugh picturing the landing strip! You know, maybe it’s still like that in the villages… maybe.
Actually Sally,
It WAS in a tiny village… near the northern mountains (Los Chuchumatanes) in Guatemala. The village was Cunén and we were invited into a home directly across the street from our inn where they were having a quinceañera plus it was Christmastime, so there was a huge portal that took up a whole corner of the front sala.
There was a three board marimba in the largest room and the musicians were wonderful. There was plenty of dancing and bonhomie even though there was no electricity in the town that evening. The room was lit by several oil lamps and the festivities went on as planned.
It was clearly evident that a lot of care and effort went into putting that particuar Portal together. It was wonderful, even with those disparate elements woven into it.
Paul
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We are doing similar. Spending Christmas w/ my inlaws in a very low-key way. I mean who needs a new something to sit around and gather dust just for the sake of giving/getting a gift. Who wants to dust? 🙂
Then maybe get a gift or two at the sales (altho’ this year we went to Ambergris Caye Belize – that was our gift! Just got back but my heart is still there) — the Orthodox’s have it right I’m thinking… Celebrate Jesus’ birth in a lower key kinda way and then gifts etc. for New Year’s (Russia, Poland…). Works for me!
Blessings to you and yours.
r