Christmas in Belize - Nature's Nativity Scene

While most Americans and Europeans are rushing to the stores and supermarkets to do their Christmas shopping, it is quiet in Belize. Here we don’t get stressed out over what to buy for our children - who already have boxes full of Barbies, video games, and Lego building bricks. Brodies supermarket has stocked its freezer with a dozen turkeys and has put five new games on the shelves. At the Chinese supermarket you can actually buy a dusty Christmas tree that even comes with a string of colorful lights. The Chinese, I feel, are in it for the money, not for the Christmas cheer. My mailbox is empty, as usual. The restaurants don’t seem to care about decorations, except it you count those that are still there from last year. Love FM is playing some Christmas songs on the radio but not frequently.

Personally, I don't mind at all. I am not a big fan of Christmas, and I hate the overemphasis on food and toys. I have put up a small tree for our daughter and we are enjoying the efforts some Belmopan residents have made to light up their houses and yards. The whole idea of Christmas shopping in Belmopan is actually funny, unless you want to ask Santa for a bottle of gas, or a mattress...

So I had kind of given up on the idea of Christmas in Belize, until I went to the Actun Tunichil Muknal or ATM cave, a 40,000-year old Maya cave. Wow, what a special place, better than any archeological museum you can ever imagine. After two hours of swimming, climbing and crawling through narrow cracks in the pitch dark with Carlos our guide, we arrived at 'the cathedral', a sacred place where thousands of years ago Mayan priests did their rituals and human sacrifices. There, deep down in the Mayan underground, I saw the most beautiful Christmas scene ever.

Doesn't it look like a nativity group? Amazing hey!

If you forget for a minute that there are also the 1400-year old remains of a teenage sacrifice victim who is believed to be clubbed and left for dead, you can actually feel the peace in that cave.

And on that note I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and an Amazing 2010!

By Susanne van Lieshout

For more stories about Belize visit Susanne's blog - www.dutchinbelize.blogspot.com

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