After all the planning and enough food to feed 50 people, the thing is over! I’m speaking of our annual Fiesta del Arbol.

I have no idea how many people were here. A shitpot full seems about right, and a LOT of them were kids which made the whole thing just great. Kids are  soooo cool at Christmas!

We had purchased an artificial tree complete with 1,000 lights. It stands just under eight feet tall, just perfect for our living room,but the thought of assembling that sucker had me not sleeping at night, and I left it in the box in the garage until the last minute… yesterday. I had visions of adding the lights, all the branches… ugh!

I have now officially changed my opinion of fake Christmas trees.

My son Will ws coming (of course with granddaughter Lucia and his wife). He was the designated helper.

We loaded the thing into the house and opened it.

As Gomer would say, “Surprise! Surprise!” . The darned thing came in three parts with all those stupid little lights already installed! The entire “set-up” time from opening the box to turning on the lights was NINE MINUTES! And… the package contained not only a remote control for turning the lights on and off (an idea whose time has arrived!), but also a motorized thingy that rotates the tree! I passed on the rotating tree dealy thinking of how the cats might find a rotating tree with dangly things just too much of an attraction.

Immediately, the kids began to decorate, and the whole tree was done in thirty minutes… no tears! It looks very nice, though I think we will later add a few more ornaments and other goodies to make it a more personal.

Also, as those 1,000 lights came pre-installed, it did not look like other trees from past years.

This was the best of the tree parties by far. ML is already planning next year’s party.

I cannot imagine anything more boring than watching someone else’s home movies or pictures, but if you really have the urge, find the party photos here.

ML has invited Costa Rica to come to our home for the annual tree decorating thing. Well of course she did not invite the whole country, just her relatives which is no more then ten percent of the people here. My son, his wifey and my granddaughter are coming too, so there will be some representation from North America. I invited some childless friends to attend but they suddenly had other things to do. Even free booze could not budge them when faced with 20 plus children.

A large number of these people will be under the age of 15. Maria has been cooking for two days and the house smells super. Maritza baked a cake last night, but had to bake another one today as I sort of ate the one from yesterday. My sweet tooth coupled with chocolate is an issue around here… and especially around the holidays.

I actually love these parties. Ticos do know how to enjoy a party and my wife’s family, with a few notable exceptions, are great people. Christmas is for kids and I am generally popular with the youngsters who may confuse my stomach with that of Senior Clause, especially after that cake episode!

I am not going to rehash what it is like at these parties as I have blogged about this here and here, so you can just click those links if you need background on the cultural differences I face at party time.

I cannot believe I bought an artificial tree! When I lived up North, buying the tree was an event! We almost always traveled away from Chicago to the tree farms in northern Illinois and cut exactly the right one. It always stayed fresh and of course it was “perfect”. We returned home with frozen feet and warm hearts. I would build a fire in the fireplace and then enjoy hot chocolate with marshmallows!

Here, you too can cut it fresh, and we have done that in past years. The issue is the trees, while true “pine” trees, are skinny and just do not “look” like Christmas trees! The fresh ones lasted of course, but the lot-bought ones kinda faded early. The really good ones, imported from the US are very expensive so we just decided the go artificial.

ML picked a nice style that came with 1,000 lights. It is now in the garage awaiting the tree decorating thing tomorrow.

As there is “some” assembly required, it may be smart to go unpack it and get the tree and the lights up and ready, leaving the hanging of balls, tinsel, whatever for tomorrow. Ticos have a reputation of sorta getting sauced early, especially if the booze is free, and the thought of another badly decorated tree makes me tend to the cautious side.

So tomorrow represents our start to the Christmas holidays, and I want to wish Happy Holidays to my readers and to anyone who has mis-clicked and found this blog by accident.