Dec 25

Christmas in the Jungle

From the rainy rainforest of northern Guatemala

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2013!!

Welcome to my house on Christmas Day! The sun is peaking through the clouds and Luna is all ready for company!

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For the last 8 years I have been coordinating Unificacion Maya at the end of December and have not had the time or the inclination to decorate for Christmas. This year I wanted to bring in the energy of the Christmas season without having to spend a lot of money on decorations.

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I dug out the box of “Christmas stuff” that I had had put away for so long that the cardboard boxes had disintegrated. Fortunately though, the tiny tree that i had bought in the market a few years ago was still looking just perfect. I had only one string of lights, and I contemplated buying more, but when strung around the tree, they were just enough.

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I strung the one string of red beads that i found at the Paca, and hung the few ornaments that i had collected since moving to Guatemala.

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After the kids had finished with their Christmas party at the library, Margo brought over the extra ornaments … a couple of strings of glittery paper ornaments (above), and an angel to put at the top of the tree.

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In fitting with the general theme of my decorating, I decided that some of the Monkeys could dress up and play parts in the Christmas pageant. I started looking at the Paca for parts for their costumes, and a couple of weeks ago i found this hat. And miraculously, it fit perfectly on a white monkey who wears a Hawaiian shirt.

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I didn’t like the red top on the hat, so wrapped it round with cotton batting held on with an elastic to make a white pom pom. I fashioned him a beard/mustache from more cotton (it doesn’t look realistic, but then, I guess its not supposed to :-)) and pinned it on.

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That same week I also found this chair that was just the right size for the Santa monkey

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I set the Santa monkey in his new chair and put it all up on a couple of white blocks and pinned a couple of Christmas stockings to the front of it. I also found a broach of a candy cane that i pinned into his hand.

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Meanwhile, I had found a couple of pairs of deer antler headbands, also in the Paca, and they just fit on the heads of two of the other monkeys, who promptly volunteered to play reindeer. A red balloon with an elastic band to hold it on changed a basic monkey reindeer into Rudolf!

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This angel was one that i made about 30 years ago for my grandmother’s tree. When my grandmother passed away, the angel came back to me and always reminds me of her.

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For the little coffee table in the middle of the room, I needed a centrepiece that wouldn’t be destroyed if (when) the cats pushed it off with a big cat-stretch in the night. I just set the mistletoe on top of a box that i use to store ornaments and I loved the simplicity and durability of it.