Christmas comes early to Panama

Christmas is my favorite season, even in July, Yesterday I started my Christmas shopping early when the Gago family opened their doors to flocks of previous customers, and what a wonderland it proved to be. It was the 10th anniversary of Aldea Navideña, the little Christmas store that grew, and grew, and grew until it became the largest store of its kind on the continent.

It seems that every year the Gagos produces more seasonal surprises, and the family rivals Dickens and the reformed Scrooge for love of the feast commemorating the birth of Christ. This year the store has placed clocks over the mailing box where youngsters can post their Christmas shopping list to Santa. One clock tells the local time, the other the time at the North Pole, above Finland.

They have also posted the history of the Christmas tradition from the days of St Francis of Assisi, and the story of the Christmas tree introduced to Germany as the Tree of Baby Jesus by English missionary St Boniface and, with a completion of the circle, introduced to England when Prince Albert, the Consort of Queen Victoria took a tree to Windsor Castle in 1840, spurring a world wide spread of the custom.

The aisles of the store are packed with decorations, artificial trees, crib scenes, nutcrackers from a couple of inches to man sized, garlands, model illuminated homes and churches for making your own Christmas village, and an expanded Christmas city that could keep you and the kids transfixed until closing time. The store, in Costa Del Este will be open to the public from 10-6 daily, starting tomorrow. Merry Christmas.