Merry Christmas from Costa Rica!

I have to say that Christmas in the tropics just feels Different.

I don’t enjoy the snow and ice of Christmas at home so I don’t miss it, but I do miss the manic festivity of it all. I love seeing everything festooned in lights and pine garland. I love seeing random people walking down the street in Santa hats or reindeer horns and ugly Christmas sweaters.

I also love giving gifts. The enjoyment that I get from seeing people smile is the gift that I give myself every year and the more I give, the better I feel. I suppose I have gone a little overboard at times, what with all the cookie tins and Christmas ornaments and so on and so on….but it gave me such a feeling of happiness.

That, and the time spend with my family is what I miss the most.

To combat the sense of loss, I am trying to switch my focus and give myself the gift of life instead (not mine-obviously…I already have that) Let me try to clarify what I mean.

I am trying to take simple pleasure in all of the life around me and use it to replace the Christmas Spirit that’s missing.

(As I sit here typing…no word of a lie… someone on the balcony above me is blowing bubbles and they are floating gently down on the breeze, dancing around my lipstick palm).

There are so many beautiful (and occasionally weird) living things here that I am endlessly fascinated.

I can sit on my front porch and see so many things. Everything from insects (and the bizarre hammerhead worm I saw yesterday -obviously not its real name) to dragonflies and butterflies to birds. There are at least a dozen types that fly by on a daily basis. Several of the neighbours have put up feeders for the tiny little hummingbirds, and the macaws fly by twice a day like clockwork…I often joke that they are heading in and out of the ‘office’ each day, filling the air with the sound of raucous cries that remind me of the pterodactyls from Jurassic Park.

There are geckos and iguanas, moths and spiders, there are cats and dogs, and the four legged racoon-like thingies whose name is escaping me right now. There are occasionally little capuchin monkeys as well…and I can see them all from my seat on the porch.

Add to this the flowers and trees, growing in all shapes and sizes colours. There must be twenty shades of green visible from where I sit right now.

I love this place. I love the LIFE of this place and I intend to soak it in and let it fill up the space inside me that’s just a little bit sad and lost.

I hope that everyone back home is enjoying their Christmas and that they realize just how special and how unique that ‘spirit of Christmas’ really is.

I also hope that… someday… they get to experience the simple happiness that comes from the flight of a huge blue butterfly with iridescent wings, or from watching a gecko skitter along the roof above your head on it’s itty bitty sticky feet.

All the best to my friends and family and to everyone else as well.

Merry Christmas!