Christmas in Atenas, Costa Rica

This will be our second Christmas in Costa Rica and in Atenas. I find the holiday season here a whole lot less hectic than it seemed to be in Canada, even though we had cut back a lot on all the shopping madness during the last few years we lived there.

This year in Atenas, we were fortunate to be asked to participate in a cookie exchange put on by our neighbours Rose Mary and Tony. We came home with nine dozen different kinds of cookies and I never thought we would be able to use them all. Guess what ... they were all gone within two weeks and it wasn't because we gave any away as gifts.

The cookie exchange table.

My contribution was Nanaimo bars, originally created in the lovely city of Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. I'm making more tomorrow to give as Christmas gifts to our taxi drivers.

This coming weekend, the Festival of Lights happens in Atenas with the parade on Saturday starting around 6:00 pm. Just go to the park and you will see it. There will be venders in the park selling food,  and, my favorite, light sticks!

Also, Music Atenas is putting on concerts:

This year, we hung lights from our hedge and I also made luminaries from paper bags - so easy. Buy largish size paper bags from your local mercado, add some sand/soil from your garden in the bottom of the bags, roll the tops of the bags down about two times, place tea lights in the sand and light them. Instant and cheap decorations that look good! You can also cut some small designs in the sides of the bags and, instead of using tea lights, small LED lights could be strung through the bags. Of course, this would not work in rainy climates.

Here is a picture of my luminaries: