It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…well for Costa Rican standards!

It’s Christmas time all right in Costa Rica! The cool winter breezes are coming down from the mountains, Ticos are lighting their Christmas lights at night, and places everywhere are packed with Ticos cooking and preparing for thier Christmas meals. The Costa Rican traffic is still pretty bad but since it’s Christmas, I’ll give them a break.

There is no doubt in my mind that I absolutely LOVE the tropical weather down here but to be honest, I really do miss the winter snow and the cold. Each night when I go to watch the news with my parents and I just see pictures like these:

I’m just like, “YESS SNOW!” I just get so happy!

Although I have to admit, it’s pretty awesome not having to shovel snow in the driveway with my dad or worry about falling face-first in the snow in Costa Rica.

This Christmas, a lot of my friends are going away for the holidays to places like England, East Asia, and a bunch of other cool places that I’m too jealous to mention. But I’ve come to like Christmas in Costa Rica. It’s really grown on me!

In my neighborhood, people have lots of extravagant and garish Christmas decorations that they use to decorate their houses but they don’t put it up themselves; they hire a whole team of men who work all day decorating they house and afterwards they look simply AMAZING!

Mostly all Costa Rican houses, rich and poor, are decorated with the manger scene. The thing about Costa Ricans is that before Christmas, they don’t display the baby Jesus. They display him on Christmas day.

In Costa Rica, instead of seeing those light-up, plastic reindeer on display or for sale, you see these:

I actually think these look a lot better 🙂

A lot of Ticos around Christmas time start making the traditional holiday foods, things like tamales (A dish made of a corn based dough filled with boneless pork shoulder or chicken breast, carrots sticks, potatoes, onions, red belt peppers, green peas and green olives wrapped in a banana leaf and tight with a string), queque navideno (Christmas cake), rompope (eggnog).

Traditionally, dinner is eaten at midnight on Christmas Eve for Ticos but every single party thrown by a Tico always ends well after midnight so it doesn’t really make much of a difference!

I can say that even though I miss the exhilaration of throwing a snowball at my little brother’s face, I’ve become accustomed to throwing a coconut at his face instead (JKJK I’m not that cruel!)

Some things I do remember from when I was little, I used to drink hot chocolate indoors while I watched the falling snow in D.C. Now I’m drinking a mango and pineapple smoothie while I lie in the sun looking out over the palm trees.