I hope Santa and the solstice fairies were good to everyone this year. Ye ol' grandpa of the world, good ol' Mr. Claus, in a trail of fairy dust and cookie crumbs, left several surprises and wish-fulfilling regalos under our tree. And this year we actually had a real "live" Christmas tree under which to leave the presents (well, at least it was alive before it was mercilessly dug up and chopped down with a shovel by a 16-year-old girl in flip-flops and dirty jeans with a cell phone hanging out of her back pocket just to satisfy our own selfish, murderous holiday whimsy). Wilder picked it out from a farm in Heredia on a visit there last month. It was a big improvement from our previous Costa Rican Christmas tree in 2005, which was a long, spindly cypress branch cut down with a chain saw from a long, spindly, wannabe-pine tree on Nago's property. It was a Charlie Brown tree -- a small, defeated piece of vegetation that could bend or break under the weight of a single glass ball. So we made paper ornaments, propped it in the corner, pretended it smelled like pine rather than gasoline, and were thankful for it. Ah, yes, this year was good with our fancy 5-foot tree balanced on a pancake-stack of planks, adorned with plastic, faux-glass green-globe and orange-icicle ornaments, boasting a slight pine smell. It’s still up, providing us with its festive visual (though no longer olfactory) appeal, trying not to become too much of a fire hazard before it is re-birthed into mulch after the new year. A satisfactory tree, a new baby, a healthy family, a few good gifts from Santa .... The holidays have been good to us. We hope they were to you too!
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