Christmas, 2013, and The New Year

Christmas is an easy holiday here in Costa Rica, at least for us. When I think of all the work involved in having Christmas in Canada, I prefer our new style.

There are a lot of artificial Christmas trees here and we don't have one, because it would be another "thing" that has to be stored and hauled around if we move. I have two strings of LED lights and they go on the hedge and look nice twinkling in the dark tropic night. We will put them away on January 2nd.

This year, we participated in the Atenas Angel Tree Project, an initiative started by Tina Newton, owner of Su Espacio. This project provides the disadvantaged children of Atenas with a Christmas present and a party with pizza, cookies, a visit from Santa, an entertainer ... all the things we took for granted when growing up. The childrens' gift requests are printed on a paper angel, along with their age, and hung on a tree. We selected two - a boy and a girl. The boy wanted a ball (soccer, we assumed) and a truck and the girl wanted a remote control car (cool!). I heard that one little boy asked for nothing more than a new pair of shoes.

We found everything in one shop in Atenas. Then I made 50 cookies for the party. Over 355 children were there. Thank you, Tina, and all the volunteers who make this a big day for the children to remember. It was a pleasure to go shopping for the two kids, especially because it was not done in a giant mall and we were supporting a local store owner.

For Christmas dinner, we invited neighbors Tony and Rose Mary and our Canadian friends, Diane and John. Our tiny oven was a challenge for my ambitious main course (seafood baked in pineapple shells) and dinner was served a bit later then I wanted. I would like to try the recipe again in a full sized oven. Lance kept everyone calm with his excellent piña coladas. Rose Mary brought appetizers and Diane contributed her brownies with ice cream. Even Barney the cat and Scruffy the dog joined us - they walked down to our house with Rose Mary and Tony (their owners).

We received our annual fruit basket from our taxi driver and friend, Mario. Love the grapes! Mario's daughter recently married Jorge ... I did a post on the wedding in November.

And now it is 2014 .... we are looking forward to the new year in Costa Rica. The dry season is here, lots of tourists, school is out .... beautiful days as usual.

Guests arriving

Scruffy says, "Hurry up!"

Barney and Scruffy arrived also

 

Seafood in pineapple shell, corn salad, and stuffing. Placemats were banana leaves.

 

Mario's fruit basket

 

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