southwestales

Holiday Past

Christmas Eve in Costa Rica

2007

Alicia and I have our five-foot artificial tree, leaning slightly to the left, decorated with blinking red Santa boot lights, green and silver ornaments, topped not with a star or angel, but a green, grinning leprechaun made by Juan Carlos, one of our students at Pablo Romero Millan in Venezuela. There are a few presents/regalos under the tree.

It’s Christmas Eve in Costa Rica and it doesn’t feel like any Christmas Eve I’ve experienced before. Maybe it’s the lack of frigid temperatures and snowy/icy substance, but I’ve lived in places like LA, where the holidays were celebrated successfully in warm beach-like weather, under sunny skies and palm trees. I think it’s more the lack of commercialized Christmas here in Heredia. There are Christmas decorations/music in the neighborhoods and business district, but not the density you find in the U.S.

I should be overjoyed with this reality, but when you’ve spent the last 47 holiday seasons being fed a steady diet of commercialized countdowns to Christmas, it feels a little bit peculiar watching TV without the plethora of toy commercials, or shopping at crowded malls without blaring non-stop Christmas music or stores stuffed with 50-60-70% off sale-priced holiday merchandise that retailers want you to believe you or your loved one(s) can’t live without. Here in Heredia we're not adding to our bills; nor walking down streets and seeing one electric-eating Christmas light display after another.  In Costa Rica, I don’t feel the compulsion to go out and shop 'till I drop or buy, buy, buy for everyone on my Christmas list. One reason is we haven’t had time to make friends yet here in Costa Rica; so Alicia and I don’t have anyone to buy for, except her and me and our lovely landlords, Edemir, Maria and their son, Augustine. Alicia’s kids, back in the U.S., have already been taken care of months ago and my siblings are far enough away where I believe they’ll excuse me for not getting them presents this year. Also, Christmas here isn’t marketed like it is in the United States, drumming you over the head like a sledgehammer-hitting Santa, holding your holiday ho-ho-ho-hostage!

I’ve always wanted to do a bill-free Christmas and not get caught up in all the expense of the holidays, but it’s like an addiction that you don’t acknowledge until the Christmas crack isn’t available. I’m experiencing a withdrawal; I want the white stuff; but with each day passing, I know we can do without it.

        It’s quiet here in this part of Costa Rica. Even doing some light last minute Christmas shopping in downtown Heredia, a 15-minute bus ride from where we live, is a silent night experience. There are some holiday decorations, mostly in the form of some holiday sale signs and a Christmas tree here or there, but for the most part, it just seems like another regular shopping day in the lives of Costa Ricans, who calmly fulfill their to-do lists.

How come this country hasn’t succumb to the gaudy display of Christmas? Where are all the lights and various versions of Jingle Bells and White Christmas?

This is the first time I have ever been out of the United States for Christmas. Alicia spent a few Christmases in Germany as a child in the 60’s and remembers real candles on a real tree, a red baby buggy, ginger bread cookies, and lots of gathered relatives, including Opa, her beloved grandfather.

I understand now why some people flee the U.S. during the holiday season and choose someplace warm and not so commercial to celebrate Christmas. But even when they’re lying on the beach Christmas day, sunning themselves, there might be a twinge of homesickness/regret that they’re not caught up in some sale shopping/present giving.

It’ll take some getting used to, I think, but I believe that this is a more natural way (pura vida) to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  As a Christian isn’t that what Christmas should be about? Maybe that wasn’t exciting enough and we started giving gifts and having parties. I don’t mind the gifts and parties, but it all seems a bit overdone, like a turkey that’s been left in the oven a couple hours too long.  It’s such a big buildup to that one special day (two, if you include New Year’s Eve) and then it’s over. In the past, I admit to feeling a bit of a letdown the days after Christmas and New Years, as if it didn’t live up to my expectations or leave me with that warm, fuzzy feeling I was searching for.

It’s not that Costa Ricans have a Scrooge-like “bah humbug” attitude to the holidays. It’s just that they celebrate the season more serenely. It’s one day out of the year and they’re not going bananas over it. It’s a bit like Whoville, post grifting Grinch.

It’s this special season when I reflect on Christmases past, especially the ones from childhood. I think those are the ones we remember most fondly. The best part of it was the anticipation and the connections to family. My family, all thirteen of them, never got tired of our holiday traditions. Decorating the Christmas tree, wrapping the presents, attending Midnight Mass, opening the presents one at a time Christmas morning, and eating all the delicious food prepared by my mother and other family members.

With both my parents gone now, Christmas isn’t the same anywhere in the world. Chauncey and Muriel were the cornerstone of the family Christmas celebrations. To their credit, my siblings carry on the customs of the holiday, but it’s different. There are traces of the traditions, like attending mass on Christmas Eve, languorously opening presents Christmas morning (my favorite part), and having a festive feast Christmas day/night.

This Christmas Eve as Alicia and I go out to shop for our dinner (I’ve asked for roast beef) for Christmas, I think about the gifts that lie right outside our door, like the naturally growing red poinsettias, butterflies, and smiling (ticos/ticas) locals, who pass you in the street saying, "Adios!" (goodbye). There’s the natural beauty of this land and its people, waiting for us to unwrap. Material things are fine and make our lives better (we could use a microwave), but it’s the gifts that God gives us that you can’t find at Walmart or Best Buy, that are most precious, right Laeden?

 Many Costa Ricans have a manger instead of a Christmas tree. We were walking home last week when one of our neighbors, with three generations present, invited us in to share in the set-up of their nativity scene. I was struck by how friendly they were and trusting too. Saying that we were teachers at the local private school helped gain us access, I’m sure. The manger was meticulously crafted and reminded me more than a Christmas tree of what Christmas is all about. Of course you have to have been raised Catholic to understand what I was feeling. There was baby, Jesus, his parents, Mary and Joseph, and the three wise men and various animals, all sharing the same starry-night manger. The scene was all very natural and suddenly I was happy to be in a land where Christmas isn’t so marketable or money-making, more ordinary (a synonym for natural).

The spirit of Christmas is here to be sure, but like the Grinch (which I saw recently in Spanish, both cartoon and film versions) I found out that it doesn’t necessarily come in a bottle or wrapped in a box or with minimum monthly credit card payments. It’s not something that’s sold to us by a company that spends millions on advertising. It’s a feeling of peace (tranquilo) and it happens every day of the year, not just one. We wish you/yours a merry little Christmas, wherever you are in the world/life. Feliz Navidad!

Written by Joe Haviland

Edited by Alicia Haviland

Copyright 2007/2009