Posadas Navidenas (Christmas Processions) are cultural festivities, not statutory holidays, that take place from December 16th through December 24th. Employees do not receive time off (with or without pay). Most schools are closed for the Christmas Vacation (which often lasts until February). Taking that into consideration, banks, government offices, businesses schools are open (or closed) as usual.
The first thing to know about celebrating Christmas in Mexico is that all who can take off the last two weeks in December. To party, spend more time with the family, visit with old friends, and make new friends.
In villages (and some urban neighborhoods) youngsters gather each afternoon to reenact Joseph and Mary’s quest for lodging in Bethlehem. The procession is headed by a diminutive Virgin Maria, often perched on a live burro, led by a equally tiny San Jose. They are followed by other children portraying angels, the Santos Reyes Magos (Magi Kings), and a host of pastores y pastoras (shepherds and shepherdesses), all usually decked out in colorful handmade costumes and carrying brightly decorated baculos (walking staffs) or faroles (paper lanterns).
The parade of Santos Peregrinos (Holy Pilgrims) stops at a designated house to sing a traditional litany by which the Holy Family requests shelter for the night and those waiting behind the door turn them away. They proceed to a second home where the scene is repeated. And on it goes until they arrive at the home of the party's host where the pilgrims are told that while there is no room in the posada (inn), they are welcome to take refuge in the stable. The doors are flung open and all are invited to enter.
Las Pastorelas (Shepherds Plays) are staged throughout the holiday season by both amateur and professional groups. These traditional, often improvised, theatrical presentations date back to Mexico's Colonial period when Roman Catholic missionaries wooed converts and taught doctrine through dramatizations of Biblical stories.
The light, humor-filled Pastorelas tell of the shepherds’ adoration of the Christ Child. First they are visited in the fields by an angel who announces the holy birth. As the shepherds attempt to follow the great star leading them to Bethlehem they are plagued by a series of evils and misadventures provoked by the Devil. But in the proverbial all’s-well-that-ends-well finale, good triumphs over evil and the shepherd's reach their intended destination.
In most Mexican homes the principal holiday adornment is el Nacimiento (Nativity scene). The focal point, naturally, is a stable where clay or plaster figurines of the Holy Family are sheltered. The scene may be further populated by an angel, Los Reyes Magos (the Magi Kings), the ox and the ass, shepherds and their flocks, and assorted other people and livestock. It is not unusual to also find the forces of evil represented by a serpent and a grotesque Lucifer lurking in the shadows. The figures may be simply positioned in a bed of heno (Spanish moss), or scattered throughout an elaborate landscape.
A major masterpiece may occupy an entire room, often near the front of the house for convenient viewing by neighbors and passersbys. The creation of the basic landscape begins with papel roca (paper painted in earth tones) draped over tables, taped onto boxes, crushed and shaped to form a multi-leveled, natural looking terrain that frequently includes a series of hills and dales, a cellophane waterfall, a mirror pond, artificial trees, cacti, palm trees, and little houses set to form an entire village scene. Colored sawdust and a variety of natural mosses may be spread out as ground cover before the addition of strings of Christmas lights and the assorted human and animal figures. The scene will not be completed until Christmas Eve when the newborn Baby Jesus is finally laid in the manger bed.
With the Americanization of Mexico, today a decorated Christmas tree may be incorporated in the Nacimiento or set up elsewhere in the home. A purchase of a natural pine represents a luxury commodity to most Mexican families, the typical arbolito (little tree) is often an artificial one, a bare branch cut from a copal tree (Bursera microphylla) or some type of shrub collected from the countryside.
Sadly, traditional Christmas Posadas are not something one often encounters in Tijuana and other border regions. If one searches hard enough one may find Las Pastorelas (Shepherds Plays) and other traditional festivities (like the Santos Peregrinos procession); however, such things are more common in small villages than in the parts of Mexico that are more Americanized.
In Tijuana one often encounters what are called Posadas Navideñas; however, they are not the traditional Posadas Navideña procession of Santos Peregrinos. Rather they are typical fiestas that are held in December filled with lots of drinking, dancing and merry making.
