Old Traditions Become New Traditions Living in Costa Rica
I come from New England, Massachusetts more specifically. October is the time to start layering clothes there. November is bundle up time and Christmas is snow, ice, freezing rain, or all of the above. Santa manages to get there despite the road conditions because he doesn’t have to use them. Christmas always was, and I’m happy to say, still is about family and friends and love.
On Christmas Eve we would go to 5pm Mass, then stop at a local pub to meet friends, then off to several open houses to drop off gifts, have a little egg nog, and eat a lot of food. When we returned home each of us could open one gift, but only one. The rest was for Christmas morning.
This past year my husband, Michael and I moved to Costa Rica where my daughter, Jai, her Tico husband, Rigo, and our two grandchildren, Jannie and Liam and Rigo’s cousin, “Pato”, live. Together we are building a small boutique hotel in the bucolic Guanacaste town of La Florida.
This December we celebrated our first Costa Rican Christmas.
Creating New Traditions
As in the states Christmas in Costa Rica is very festive with trees in the town squares and twinkling lights on nearly every home. The week before Christmas we were invited to my daughter’s to help decorate the “palm tree”. Actually it was a “Christmas Palm” which distinguishes itself by having bunches of red berries beneath its frons that display themselves around Christmas.
On Christmas Eve day we had traveled up to our property to harvest our yucca plants. You have to cut the little trees with a machete so that there is about 24″ of stock sticking out of the ground. Next, you grab the stocks and move them back and forth while pulling upwards ’til the plant, roots and all, come out of the ground. It’s a contest to see whose has the largest and the most tubers. I think Liam won with a little help from his dad.
Christmas Eve we went to Jai and Rigo’s for a traditional Costa Rican Christmas Eve celebration. The night before Christmas many Costa Rican families open all their gifts. Santa still comes after midnight and leaves toys and fills stocking so one gets presents on both days.
Jaime and I had made apps and she planned a lovely dinner which we didn’t get to due to all the apps plus the kids could no longer wait for their presents. Soon the heap of gifts were passed out to their intended as brightly colored wrap began to pile.
Christmas morn we were back at Casa Campos for breakfast. Jai had peeled and shredded some yucca, added an egg and mozzarella, and Rigo fried them like a potato latke. Jaime made a Chilero salsa piquante aioli with lime and mayo for dipping. Spicy but…………………………delicioso! Then we were off for their annual Christmas adventure to find the “lost falls”.
After many turn arounds and car mountain climbing we finally stopped and asked a farmer where the heck they were. He hopped into the car to show us the way. We drove the short distance to where, after a little hike through the woods, they were found (after a three year search, mind you).
He refused a return ride and instead walked back up the mountain all for a beer and a wish for us, a Feliz Navidad. The falls were lovely but too steep to traverse with flip-flops, so we went to the river near our land.
We’re into the dry season now, so the level is low. We plunked beach chairs in the water and drank mimosas while Liam tried out his new fishing rod on minnows and Jan sat in an inner tube and went nowhere for the water was too shallow.
On the way back home we went through La Florida where our building is slowly going up and stopped at the local bar for drinks, boccas, and dancing while fire-crackers were going off (another Christmas tradition). All and all it was a great, if not unusual, Christmas.
New Year’s Eve was not as unusual. We had a scrumptious dinner of barbequed ribs and marinated mushrooms over an open pit fire. Jai made a special potato-beet salad. I made cornbread.
When it got dark we sat around the fire while the kids toasted marshmallows and made so ‘mores and fireworks displayed overhead. All normal to me except we do this on the Fourth of July.
And so, as my husband and I begin another chapter in our lives. We are grateful for family, added friendships, learning about and enjoying a different culture and celebrating new traditions.
(My son-in-law gave Michael a machete for Christmas. Thank God I’m a nurse! Stay tuned.)
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Written by VIP Member Paula Gilmour who was born and raised in Massachusetts and who has spent most of her life on Cape Cod. Paula is married to Michael and together they have three children. The family moved to Costa Rica in February 2013 after vacationing here for the past twelve years.
Paula and Michael’s daughter Jamie married a young Tico and together they are building a small boutique hotel and spa in the “sweet village of La Florida (the flowered) in Guanacaste. Paula’s articles will give us “little snippets of what life is like in Costa Rica and the trials and tribulations in a land where we don’t speak the language (but are learning), and are trying to construct a building, a business, and a new way of life.”
Old Traditions Become New Traditions Living in Costa Rica
Article/Property ID Number 4565
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Andrew Makarik
to@welovecostarica.comAndrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.
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