Day 65: Daily Boost readers’ favorite Costa Rican Christmases, part I

Posted on by stanleyobando

Today I’m sharing what I hope will be just the first round of some holiday reflections from a group of people who have really come to mean a lot to me over the past few months: Daily Boost readers.

Last night I fired up the random number generator and drew the winner for my “Costa Rica for Christmas” contest – @kasiaincr is the big winner, and I’ll be sending a box full of Costa Rican treats, stationery from Holalola, coffee from Santo Café and art from Alma Artesana to the address of her choosing! As part of the contest, participants received a bonus entry if they shared something about their favorite Costa Rican holiday memory. Here is a partial selection. What would YOU add to our list? I’d love to hear from you.

From Instagram user nirita93: “I am missing the Christmas tamales I enjoyed with my host family.” (Tamales were mentioned by a lot of readers – mmmmmmm.)

From erinkporter_: “My fave CR holiday memory is spending Christmas with my mom, dad and Aunt Diane in San Jose — at my aunt’s house. We went to an amazing holiday festival and I got to ride a horse for the first time!”

From steph_caste: “My favorite holiday is Christmas. I have three siblings and we have the tradition to go, all four, to choose the Christmas Tree for our home. There’s nothing better than the smell of the cypress tree around the house.”

From karla.delgadov: “El olor a café y tortillas en las mañanas.”

And from maryascholl: “Christmas 2002. A new-to-us farm, 3 kilometers from anything. No car. No furniture. No appliances except a rice cooker and an electric frying pan. No phone. No cell phone. 7 unexpected guests on Christmas Day. Joyful play in the river and the yummiest rice and scrambled egg meal ever! A Christmas I will always cherish.”

Thank you much for sharing these comments with me. What are others looking forward to or missing this Christmas! I’d love to hear from you. And congratulations, @kasiaincr, for your win!

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

Day 63: The fruits of summer

Posted on by stanleyobando

One of the many luxuries of life in Costa Rica is the availability of local fruits all year, but something about the sunny skies of December – and the beach trips that often happen during the holidays – gets me craving fruits more than ever.

The supermarkets, at least in San José, push exotic holiday fruits in December, including the grapes that are a must-have in New Year’s Eve (more on that later), and crisp imported apples. On the local side, I always associate the holidays with papaya, because my visiting parents would always delight in having fresh papaya as many mornings as possible for breakfast. (Mops, we’ll have some ready for you when you arrive!)

What are your favorite fruits this time of year? Are there any “exotic fruits” – whether you’re in the tropics importing apples, or in the snow importing mangos – that you love for the holidays? I’m hoping to have a particularly fruit-filled holiday this year to steer me away from other kinds of sugar, so I’d love any inspiration you throw our way.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

Day 34: Sure, there’s nothing scary here

Posted on by stanleyobando

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 15 years explaining that truly, Halloween is just an excuse to sell, buy and eat tons of candy and walk around looking like idiots. I threw a tiny party for my daughter on Oct. 31st last year, and after her school friends and moms had checked out her mermaid-carved pumpkin and Miraculous Ladybug costume, one of the mothers told me she was relieved that the celebration wasn’t as creepy and dark as she had imagined.

It always makes me smile because to me, Latin American ghost stories are so much scarier than anything I was told as a child as I traipsed around the neighborhood with a pillowcase. Not even “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” whose haunting tales and terrifying sketches I pored over for years. (Remember “Bloody Mary”?)

La Llorona, whose cries can be heard by the river at night as she mourns the children she drowned? If she doesn’t scare you before you’re a mom, she’ll make your blood run cold afterwards. La Segua, the beautiful woman who suddenly reveals her evil, horse’s face? I’ve heard people talk very matter-of-factly about running into her at night around our neighborhood. El Coco, who inspired the lullaby Duérmete niño, duérmete ya, que viene el Coco y te comerá (Sleep now, child, or the Coco will come and eat you)? Seriously? How does anyone ever close their eyes around here?

Maybe the dead grass is always spookier and spikier on the other side of the fence. Maybe I’m scared by the stories I’ve heard in Costa Rica because they are unfamiliar. On the other hand, maybe Latin America’s affinity for magic in everyday life means that my husband and other people around me in Costa Rica find it totally natural to talk about these stories as a point of fact, or describe these characters as if they were distant family members – whereas to me, scary stories that don’t stay squarely within the covers of a book are downright terrifying.

Whether you get your thrills from La Llorona or Freddy Kreuger, and whether your kids dress up on El Día del Niño or Halloween, I wish you a Halloween that’s as scary as you want it to be, as sweet as a stale bite-sized Twix, and as free as those first steps out onto the sidewalk on a chilly October night.

(The book in the image is by Sambumbia, whose line of handmade cloth-covered notebooks, T-shirts and other products are available at Alma Artesana in Curridabat, San José. You can check them out online here.)

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).