A Mexican Christmas Carol

A cultural, spiritual, and epicurean tradition.

Dec 13, 2023

My Abuelita was born in a large city in the Mexican State of Zacatecas but when she was a teenager, the family moved to a rancho (a.k.a., ranch or small hacienda). In the heart of the country between the border states with the US and Mexico City, she moved to a rural town with no electricity, no indoor plumbing, or paved streets. It was here where she grew up very traditional and not surprisingly, very religious.

All special occasions were incredibly eventful and lively for her family. Weddings were celebrated for a week. Quinceañeras (a.k.a., a girl’s 15th birthday) were extended 3-day parties in which essentially the whole town was invited. But holidays, especially religious ones, were sacred and particularly meaningful. And as she married and started her own family, Abuelita held on to this festive fervor. In fact, she would become known for having the biggest and joyous of parties in her family!

Needless to say, my Abuelita loved a good party.

Food. People. Music. All three were necessary and should be in abundance at any good party, in her opinion.

So when winter rolled into Southern California and the end of the year was drawing to a close, Abuelita would host a gathering for Navidad (a.k.a., Christmas) unlike any other. I think some of you might already know this but Christmas Eve was actually the event of the year for our family, not Christmas Day. This is a carry over from a Mexican Catholic custom when traditionally, children wouldn’t receive their Christmas gifts until January the 6th which is known as Día de los Reyes Magos (a.k.a., Three Kings Day).

What do you do instead of opening gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? You party your heart out in rejoice of the birth of Jesus Christ, of course! In other words, Christmas Eve becomes more about the sanctity of the day than the fact that it’s a bank holiday. (I will elaborate shortly.)

And this is how my childhood went. Every year on the night of Christmas Eve, after visiting my father’s side of the family, we would trek on over to Pasadena and find a hopping party at Abuelita’s house — well underway!

For today, I want to dive into a little more detail about what that looked like. And this post wouldn’t be complete without recipes, no? (You are more than welcome to skip on down to the end of this post for those! I can respect this choice!)

I. The Spirit of Christmas Feasting

green parsley — A plate of perfect tamales.

Abundance I think was already mentioned. That was her mantra when it came to food. You should have enough food to feed an army, always.

The Christmas Eve dinner was always a joint effort between Abuelita, some of her siblings, and a few of her children. Someone brought the rice and beans. Another person brought the ice and drinks. One of my 6 uncles made the champurrado. My Nina made the flan (a.k.a., custard) and “rainbow jello” (see below for both), so on and so on. It’s wonderful to think back on it now, the level of unity and compassion my Abuelita inspired in everyone. She somehow convinced everybody to bring food or drink, your rosary, and a good attitude!

But this attitude was instilled in us all from the start. From my earliest memories, I can remember visiting Abuelita on the weekends, as per usual, but in December all efforts were put towards party prep! And the thing that took the longest to prepare?

The entree that was reserved for Christmastime only?

The delight that took a whole village (literally) to prep and assemble?

Why tamales, of course! A Mexican Christmas Eve dinner is not complete without a large mountain of tamales sitting on your stove. Tamales are a beloved food but very labor intensive to make. The recipe isn’t particularly complicated, there are just a lot of steps.

Prep work included: soaking the corn husks, for hours. Making the 3 or 4 different kinds of fillings, savory and sweet. Mixing the masa dough.

And then, there was the assembly! Or rather, the assembly line — which involved: spreading the masa on the flattened corn husk. (Now, pass that along to the relative or neighbor or friend sitting next to you.) Spooning the filling into the center of the husk. (Again, pass it along.) Folding up the sides of the husk, enveloping the filling, and then tying them off at one end. (Place it in it’s final resting place, the cooking pot.)

Let’s not forget the kiddos in the corner — we were usually busy tearing up corn husks into thin strips which were then used to tie off the tamales. Everyone had a job, from the youngest to the eldest.

Abuelita and her siblings would then expertly distribute the assembled tamales in very large pots and start the cooking process. Goodness knows where she found those gargantuan-sized pots! Maybe she purchased them at some restaurant depot.

And this process went on for weeks because my Abuelita insisted on making hundreds! Whew! Talk about a test of endurance.

Oh, but they tasted incredible. We made them as a family. And we ate them as a family.

So, they were worth it.

II. The Spirit of Christmas Praying

The Nativity decor — A simple Nativity scene.

At Abuelita’s insistence, we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ in the most Mexican of ways — with a reenactment of the Nativity story called Las Posadas (lit. “the inns” or lodging).

Even if you are not religious or spiritual, there is something to be said about the pageantry of Las Posadas.

But! Before all of that, Abuelita would start off the religious portion of the evening by gathering everyone to pray The Rosary whilst seated around the biggest Nativity scene known to fit inside a human’s house. Next to her normal sized Christmas tree, her Nativity scene sat on top of her large coffee table flanked by whatever other side tables or crates were available. The wooden board that then lay on top must have been at least 6 feet long and 3 feet deep. (My Mom has a Nativity scene in her living room for Christmas but it’s a solid 2 feet by 2 feet, and it’s plenty big.) It was covered in faux moss or pasture. And littered from one end to the other were tiny figurines of villagers, farm animals, and pueblo-style infrastructure. We’re talking hundreds of these miniatures! Some of them worn for wear. And most were clearly from several different Nativity scene collections.

And in the middle of it all? Propped higher for all to see was a very large manger with proportionately sized dolls of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus.

It was quite a sight to behold!

Inevitably, after bellies were filled with food, Abuelita would summon the troops for prayer. The kids would be rounded up from the back and front yards, sometimes kicking and screaming. All the women would sit together in bunches near the tree. Even the ever present group of middle-aged men who enjoyed sitting in the back room, isolating themselves in that sort of manly way men of the same age do — found their way to the living room, if only to stand on the outskirts of the action. And all the in-laws, or future-in-laws, herded in with looks of intrigue and curiosity. If you were at Abuelita’s house, your presence was required at The Rosary.

— One lightening round of The Rosary later (a speedy 15 minutes) and then the pageantry officially began!

Buckle up, now. This party is about to really kick off!

III. The Spirit of Christmas Reenacting

Las Posadas, or the reenactment of the Nativity story of Mary and Joseph, requires a few supplies, namely:

A doll in the likeness of a Baby Jesus.
A silver tray.
Candy to place on said tray.
Perfume, for the baby.
Clothes, baby sized. Again, for the baby.
A small blanket, big enough to fit one baby.
Sheet music, because there is some singing that needs to be done. (Bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?!)
Sparklers. Because their festive.
And finally, some sort of a barrier to represent the “outside” and “inside” of an inn.

When I used the word pageant, I meant it! It was a production!! It has been extraordinarily fun to watch new significant others, including my own husband, experience Las Posadas for the first time. All of the emotions. So much confusion. But so much reverence.

Briefly, the story goes like this: Mary and Joseph are traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem and they need a place to stay so that Mary can give birth safely and comfortably. They find a inn who will give them lodging but a manger is all they can offer. Mary and Joseph accept what is offered. Baby Jesus is born in a manger. Boom.

Back to the pageant — I’ll keep it simple. Here is the order of events:

All the single people of the party are corralled into the area of the house designated as “outside,” i.e., they are “outside” of the inn from whom they are asking for lodging.
All the married or widowed people are corralled into the area of the house designated as “inside,” i.e., they are “inside” of the inn deciding on whether or not to give the “outside” people lodging.
Then, the singing begins. A call and response song is sung. The outside group sings to the inside group, asking for lodging. The inside group sings to the outside group, the group is skeptical but eventually concedes. More singing is done in celebration.
At this point, everyone agrees that the Baby Jesus is born. The assigned young male and young female persons to represent Mary and Joseph (determined ahead of time after much lobbying from their respective parents) must first dress the baby.
Then, they perfume the baby. Because.
And to end the ritual, they rock the baby to sleep by swinging the doll in the blanket and singing it a lullaby.
We embrace the Baby Jesus by kissing the doll on the forehead. The baby is placed on the silver tray and surrounded by the candy. Each party member is presented with the baby, gets the chance to kiss it, and then receives a piece of candy. (Just do it. We all have to. It’s tradition.)
And for the finale, every one is given a sparkler and the ceremonial risk-taking-of-lighting-sparklers-inside-a-house begins! Do sparks fly off into our hair, clothes, and onto the carpet? Yes! But that is half of the fun.

Need help picturing it? Check out this video I found that shows an entire town participating in Las Posadas. We, of course, were a much smaller crowd. Mighty but admittedly, much smaller.

IV. Christmas Morning

Relax, lean back, chit chat it up with your second or third cousin. You’ve got some time to kill until midnight. Have a cup of champurrado (again, see below). Find some coffee, you have to stay up for a little bit longer.

And lo! With minutes left in December 24th, everyone files into the living room. Again. Better grab your drink, alcoholic or not. The countdown is about to begin.

On the stroke of midnight, you would have thought the Apollo 11 space shuttle had landed on the moon! Like it was 1969 all over again. At 12:01AM on December 25th, the thunderous clapping, cheering, and screaming was probably indeed heard in space.

Congratulations, you have made it through another Navidad à la Abuelita!

Kiss and hug every single person goodbye. Go home. Get some sleep.

You’ve got some presents to open up in a few hours.

Recipes

You’ve made it to the recipes section of this post, amazing! To reward you, here is a great post about comida navideña (a.k.a., Christmas food) from one of my favorite food blogs, Mexico in my Kitchen. These recipes are just a handful of epicurean highlights from our family’s Christmas Eve feasting. Again, I have not tried to make most of these beverages or dishes myself but they are on my list — I’m nervous but excited to finally learn how to make them at home.

Ensalada Navideña de manzana (a.k.a., Christmas apple salad) - this one might look familiar to you if you enjoy a good Waldorf salad. This is probably my favorite thing to make! And it’s really easy to put together.
Buñuelos - these are essentially fried flour tortillas covered in cinnamon and sugar. What’s not to love! My Nina (a.k.a., godmother) makes incredible buñuelos.
Tamales de rajas con queso (a.k.a., cheese and roasted pepper tamales) - I think these are my favorite kind of tamal. If you have never had a tamal, it can be described as a large-ish long corn dough dumpling. They can be filled with a varied combination of meats, cheeses, salsas, and sometimes even sweet things like raisins and pineapple. Making tamales from scratch without Abuelita here to supervise me is the kind of thing that intimidates me but this year, I am up for the challenge!
Ponche Navideño (a.k.a, Christmas fruit punch) - very much akin to wassail! It can be served with or without alcohol!
Flan - if custard and crème brûlée had a child, this would be it! It is my absolute favorite dessert that my Nina makes. I can never order it anywhere else anymore. And trust me, I have tried to stay open-minded but am always thoroughly disappointed by others’ attempts.
Gelatina de mosaico (a.k.a., mosaic jello, but we always called it “rainbow jello”) - a colorful treat, it’s also considered a very popular street or vendor food.
Champurrado - I've mentioned this one before in another post. It’s a heartier version of hot cocoa made with warming spices and corn flour.
And if you are really traditional — Bacalao (a.k.a., salted cod) - my dad has fond memories of his Tía making this dish back in Mexico when he was a kid.

My Momma had this wild idea to make a paid version of this newsletter and the recipients would receive our most coveted family recipes. What do y’all think about this as a future option for paid subscribers? Let me know in the comments!