I got up at about 8:30 to find everyone including Melania who had actually stayed the night, eating breakfast in the kitchen. After breakfast, we all sat down in the lounge and opened presents.
Outside the door of my bedroom there had been a stack from Guisella and Jorge, so the three of us children each had a whole pile to open. At this time I also gave the presents I had brought from New Zealand to the family.
They all really liked the gifts, and I liked mine too. I got some Costa Rican t-shirts, sunglasses, a Costa Rican flag, a copy of Jose's second book, and a photo frame with two photos of my family here.
The amount of presents that Melania and Jose got was astounding, they were mostly clothes.
Immediately after opening all the presents I got the Christmas songs playing, hung the flag up in my room and put the picture frame on the bedside table.
I got ready for the day, and then followed Guisella and Jose to the ranch at the neighbours' house (Jose's godparents). We started to set up the area for the big Christmas lunch of 36 people, which included getting tables and chairs from different houses, cleaning them, and then arranging them so that they weren't in the heat of the day. The weather today was perfect, there was not a cloud in the sky, and therefore it was boiling hot.
Once it was all set up, we returned home and just relaxed for a bit. It was about 1:00 when things kicked off. First off all we had some of the younger ones come to our house to show us some of their presents, before we all headed over to the ranch for lunch.
There were so many new people that I had never met before, and, of course, I hardly remember any of their names just because there were so many new faces.
We sat down and had a lunch of ham, bread, salad, pasta, rice and chickpeas which was accompanied by ice tea and fresca for me. It was quite a different spread of food to what I am used to, but good all the same.
We then just sat around for a while, talking at the tables, having photos taken, and running round with the little children.
Then it was time for dessert.
Now, in New Zealand, for Christmas we usually have so many different types of dessert that we pick from, well in reality we eat them all. Here there was just one little one, that we each had an individual little container that we ate it out of. Rebe had made it and it was a delicious mousse.
The coolest thing was the container that it was served in though. As it came with a bottom and a top, and you took the top of and attached it upside down to the bottom and it became a little stand for the dessert.
After dessert, there was more present giving. People ended up with more piles of presents than what they could hold, since every relative seemed to give everyone a present. I gave out the rest of my presents at this time too.
The celebrations kept going, and while people came and went there was never really less than 24 at any one time.
It was about 5:00 when things started to die down, I was now inside the ranch, with Jose, Melania, Rodolfo, Laura and one of the relatives from England and they were discussing the presidential elections that are to happen next year.
It was very interesting to listen to, and I thought the relative from England had some very sound logic about it all. They came to the conclusion that none of the candidates was any good. How great.
After this, I spent about half an hour telling Rodolfo all the issues in New Zealand, which he was quite interested about. Both these conversations were so captivating that I barely noticed that by the time they were finished, everyone had gone and everything had been cleaned up.
We returned home, and Jorge opened up the rest of his presents in front of us, including Melania, Francisco, Rebe, Naty and Teto (Ernesto). Also, during the day I had received more presents from Melania, Laura and Rebe, it was very kind of them all.
A little while after Rebe, Naty and Teto left, we all headed off to their house for them all to show us the presents they had received in the day. It was a lot too.
I had seen their house multiple times, but this was the first time I had been in it. It was a very nice two storeyed house that had spectacular views towards San Jose.
After we had been shown everyone's presents I had a quick little game of FIFA Teto. He scored very early on, and I was just being told we had to go when I managed to slot one in. I didn't mind leaving at that point with a draw.
We then just got home and chilled out for the rest of the night, listening to more Christmas music.
What an awesome Christmas experience for my first Christmas outside of New Zealand.
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