(Not) Home for the Holidays

Five months from September is February. In between those months comes Christmas. I knew before leaving Canada that spending my first Christmas away from home was a big possibility. Coming home for the holidays was always an option, but with only one month left of my internship, I figured I might as well stay here and stick it out.
Once I made my decision, I tried not to dwell on it or think about it too much. It was pretty easy to do. With the weather over the past 2 months a constant 30 and sunny, it feels like living in a perpetual August.

I did decorate the palm tree at the house to acknowledge the holiday.
But still Christmas kept slipping my mind. Christmas didn't seem to be as in your face as it is back home. People were still working and it was business as usual at the house. I noticed that since most people are just trying to get by throughout the year, buying gifts for other people wasn't that much of a priority. Or maybe that was just my perspective.
Presents were piled under the Christmas palm tree but not until Christmas Eve (and I think the family just did it for the photo op).

So to answer everyone's question of what Christmas was like in Nicaragua, I'd say it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Maybe it was the lack of snow and not being around family and friends but this Christmas seemed to come and go with less of a flourish.