Under Grumpa's Hat

If someone had told me a few years ago that our first Christmas outside Canada would involve palm trees lit up like they were auditioning for Vegas, I would have laughed, poured another Crown Royal, and reminded them that I am a bushman, not a world traveler. A sturdy, frost-bitten, maple-flavoured bushman. Christmas to me has always meant spruce trees, snowbanks, and shovelling the driveway in that special kind of cold that makes your eyelids stick together like two shy teenagers.

Yet here we are. Trading spruce for palm trees. Trading snow for sand. And let me tell you, sand is terrible for building snowmen. It also sneaks into places where no holiday spirit belongs. As for shovelling, it would be damn hot for that kind of thing here. I might try it once just for nostalgia, but the neighbours would probably call the paramedics thinking I had some sort of heatstroke-induced vision of Canadian winter. It would look like someone in Canada taking out his lawnmower to get rid of the snow in the driveway!

This year, Christmas means something entirely different. For the first time, we will not just be a bit removed from our family; we will be a whole country and several time zones away. Sure, we didn’t always have our family with us for Christmas before, but it hits differently when you are truly far. Not drive-across-province far. Not even jump-on-a-short-flight far. More like, if-we-forget-the-gravy-back-home-we’re-not-turning-around far.

And yet, the strangest thing is that I am excited. Nervous too, like meeting the in-laws for the first time, but mostly excited. Because Christmas is a big deal in Costa Rica. A huge deal. These folks take the religious aspect seriously. While Canada sometimes treats the holiday like an annual shopping marathon followed by a long nap, Costa Rica celebrates the birth of Jesus with passion, colour, and enough fireworks to confirm that safety codes are more like friendly suggestions.

I am genuinely intrigued by the new Navidad traditions. New meals, new customs, new people and new lingo. For example, I recently learned that the word for turkey here, pavo, sounds suspiciously like something you might mutter at someone who cuts you off in traffic. I need to be careful with pronunciation or I may end up either insulting someone or ordering a side dish by accident.

The food is going to be different too. Back home, Christmas dinner is a predictable parade of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and enough gravy to drown a small village. Here, I hear there will be tamales wrapped in banana leaves, rice dishes seasoned with flavours you can actually taste, and tropical fruits that do not require a chainsaw to open. I look forward to it, although part of me worries that my stomach will register a formal complaint. It has grown up on meat, root vegetables and things boiled until they plead for mercy.

And then there is the social aspect. Ticos are warm, welcoming and delightfully chatty. Canadians, on the other hand, have perfected the art of polite silence. Back home, if someone knocks on your door unexpectedly, you hide behind the couch and pretend you have moved. Here, people will wander in with food, hugs and questions about your life story before you even offer them a seat. So my plan is simple: embrace it. If the season is about connection, then maybe this is the year to connect in new ways, even if my Spanish still sounds like a toddler trying to order tequila.

I have noticed something else too. With the tropical heat, everything smells like a blend of flowers and sunscreen instead of melting snow and wet mittens. It is strange and wonderful all at once.

Of course, there are moments of sentimental tug. When we see photos from back home of pristine snow, Christmas markets and family gatherings, it hits us. Not in a sad way, but in one of those reflective ways that make you understand how traditions are tied to place. When you move the place, the tradition shifts with it. It stretches. It reshapes itself. Sometimes it snaps and you have to tie it back together. Other times it opens up room for something new.

The funny thing is, some people back home are thinking of how lucky we are to spend Christmas in paradise. Costa Rica is paradise, no doubt about it. But paradise is not the thing that makes the holiday meaningful. It is not the view or the warm mountain breeze or the beach. Those things are lovely, but they are scenery, not substance.

And this brings me to what surprised me most.

I thought leaving Canada for Christmas would feel like leaving Christmas itself. That without the snow and the familiar rituals, the holiday would feel hollow. Instead, it forced me to look at Christmas without the packaging. Here, far from the usual landmarks of the season, the simple heart of it stands out more clearly.

In a local village nearby, there are 19 children. Our little gate community makes it an annual event to provide them with a Christmas present and some food. You see, this is what the season’s spirit is all about: looking out for the less fortunate.

Here, the gift is not the feast or the decorations or the weather. It is not even the traditions we grew up with. The gift is the reminder we get every year. A reminder that began long before marketing departments got their hands on it. A reminder born in a humble little story about a child, a mother, a father, and the hope that arrived quietly in the night.

That story follows you anywhere. Even under palm trees. Even in sandals instead of boots. Even when the nearest snowflake is several thousand kilometres to the north.

Maybe that is the real moral hiding behind our first Christmas away from home. You can trade spruce for palms and snow for sand, but the spirit of the season is portable. It comes with you, tucked somewhere between gratitude and wonder, waiting to unwrap itself at the right moment.

And in the end, you realise something else.

Home is not where you spend Christmas. Home is what Christmas brings out in you, no matter where you stand on the map.

Merry Christmas to you, dear readers, and to your loved ones.

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