Celebrating The Christmas Season In Costa Rica

It was an experience that I had anticipated for what felt like an eternity

. I was about to see my spouse after several months of being separated by several hundred miles. Even better, I would soon be with her in her native country of Costa Rica with the Christmas season in full force. I had never looked forward to any other Christmas with such anticipation. My patience was being tested however as I sat on a stuffy plane that was delayed in its departure from Miami. It seems that the airline had to search for three passengers who had checked their baggage for the flight but had not boarded the plane. Having failed to locate them the process of locating and unloading their luggage from the cargo bay had begun.

After a nearly two-hour delay we were finally in the sky and my heart raced the entire trip until we touched down and I passed through customs to see the face of my spouse peering through the window of the waiting area at Juan Santamaria Airport.

The following day I got my first taste of a Costa Rican Christmas time. My spouse had decorated her home with many of the decorations that we had purchased together a year earlier. We augmented these with additional Christmas lights and decorations that she had asked me to bring down, including some bright blue lights to put in her Christmas tree.

As I walked the neighborhood I discovered other homes had similar modern decorations and lights but some of them had something different and original. Inside their wrought iron gates, on the patio, were carefully-consructed, homemade nativity scenes that were comprised of entire villages of figures and landscapes reminiscent of Bethlehem and the birth of Christ. It was amazing to see these novel creations that the people had worked on diligently and proudly displayed. My mother-in-law had one of these in her living room that occupied the entire wall and reached as high as the ceiling.

In the evening on my first full day in Costa Rica we traveled by bus into the capital of San Jose to see the lighting of a large Christmas tree sponsored by Coca-Cola. As the crowd gathered, Latin pop music blared over loud speakers and parents bought light-toys for their children that shone brightly in the gathering dusk. These included swords and devil's horns. A video screen repeatedly played a Coca-Cola festive season commercial in Spanish. When the show began the stage came alive as a pair of hosts introduced costumed characters from Coca-Cola's marketing campaign that were certainly not native to Costa Rica. A walrus, penguin, seal and polar bear all made an appearance. Finally Santa Claus arrived and entertained everyone with jolly Spanish greetings punctuated by the familiar ho, ho, ho. The tall tree beside the stage was lit with much fanfare and my spouse, myself and a few of her sisters, nieces and nephews barely beat the exiting crowd to dine at a nearby Pollo Campero, a Central American restaurant chain that serves fried chicken dinners similar to Kentucky Fried Chicken.

A week later the same group and some additonal relatives (there are ten sisters in my spouse's family) ventured into San Jose once again for the Festival de la Luz (Light Festival). This massive evening parade of brightly lit floats, that is broadcast on live television and attended by a million spectators, kicked off with a magnificent fireworks display. The menacingly dark clouds of the late afternoon finally produced some sprinkles of rain now that it was dark but luckily they passed by and left the crowd in a joyful mood as the parade began. Marching bands from various provinces of Costa Rica passed by in shimmering costumes and played Christmas tunes such as Walking in a Winter Wonderland, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells. These were joined by dancing groups in traditional Costa Rican costumes, dancing Santas, clowns on stilts and groups of cheerleaders performing routines that included tossing batons in the air and forming human pyramids. The floats, which were sponsored by Costa Rican and foreign banks as well as other commercial sponsors, varied from tropical themes of palm trees and jungle animals to North American Christmas and winter scenes including machines that spewed artificial snowflakes into the air. One visually spectacular float from the Republic of China featured a huge golden dragon.

Unfortunately, just a couple of days after the parade I would be leaving Costa Rica to be home with my own family for Christmas Day. Before leaving I arranged for an early Christmas dinner with my spouse's family in her home. We visited the butcher's counter of a nearby supermarket and purchased a fresh, never frozen, plump turkey. My spouse stuffed the turkey with a bread and sausage dressing and marinated it using spices that she improvised. After a short time in the oven the aroma began to permeate the entire house and wafted into the nearby neighborhood through opened windows. When the relatives arrived we toasted the Christmas season, each other and the opportunity to be together as a family. We sat down and enjoyed the turkey accompanied by the dressing, mashed potatos and gravy and followed by a dessert of fruitcake and baked goods that my mother had given me to take down for them. I had planned the meal with my spouse to give her relatives an idea of the kind of traditional meal that I would be having on Christmas with my family back home. Although some Costa Rican's celebrate Christmas with turkey, it is more common for them to have a pork roast at their Christmas feast, which begins on Christmas Eve and does not end until the early morning hours of December 25. Someday I hope to celebrate it with them likewise, however I will always treasure my first experience of the Christmas season in Costa Rica for its color, for the festive spirit and for the closeness of family celebrations.

by: Peter Knight

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