The Christmas season is a time for traditions. Some traditions
include hanging stockings, stringing up lights, adorning a tree,
baking cookies, and attending parties with family and friends.
The Christmas season is a time for traditions. Some traditions include hanging stockings, stringing up lights, adorning a tree, baking cookies, and attending parties with family and friends.
Many traditions, originally brought to America from different cultures, have changed over time. One tradition that has been celebrated since the sixteenth century throughout Mexico and in many Latino countries is Las Posadas.
In Spanish, the word Posadas means “inn” or “shelter.” Every evening, beginning Dec. 16 and for nine straight days leading up to Christmas, a party is held – the Posadas party (fiesta). The festive gathering re-enacts Joseph and Mary’s search for lodging after their journey to Bethlehem from the city of Nazareth.
On the first night of the Posadas, families and neighbors gather at a particular home where selected children are dressed as Mary and Joseph. Sometimes another child, a guiding angel, is also chosen to lead the young holy couple. In rural villages, a donkey is still used to carry Mary. The celebration begins with a somber candle lit procession led by Mary and Joseph. The group comes to the first stop, and Joseph humbly knocks on the door asking if there is room at the inn.
After the request for lodging, the group begins to sing verses back and forth between the innkeepers (posaderos) and the pilgrims (peregrinos). The pilgrims ask in a song, “Who will give shelter to these pilgrims who come tired from walking the roads?” The innkeepers respond, “It doesn’t matter that you say you’re exhausted, we will not give shelter to strangers.” The door is then closed to Mary and Joseph.
The procession, now joined by the inhabitants of the previous house, continues to several more homes, each time making the same request for lodging. The back and forth song denying room for the weary travelers is sung at each house. At the last home, the innkeepers say they do, indeed, have room and finally sing, “Enter, Holy pilgrims, accept this dwelling, not of this humble house, but from our hearts.” Then the entire procession enters the house and a party begins.
Popular favorites at the fiesta include hot chocolate with cinnamon sticks, atole (a thick drink similar to an American hot cereal), ponche (fruit punch), pan dulce, and tamales.
The highlight of the Posadas is the piñatas where children hit earthenware jars covered in papier- mâche and filled with candy, fruit, toys and sometimes coins. The older kids use a blindfold, and the children take turns hitting the piñatas with a stick until it breaks and all the goodies scatter on the ground.
One of the older customs calls for the group to end the party by singing a Christmas carol around the nativity scene. In many homes, a large and sometimes elaborate nativity scene is centrally displayed. Traditionally, the Posadas continues every night beginning at different homes until Christmas Eve when the procession culminates at midnight Mass.
Here in the United States, the tradition of the Posadas has undergone change. Rarely is it celebrated for nine straight days. More often the Posadas is celebrated as a one-night procession and fiesta. My family and I have participated on a few occasions in a neighborhood Posadas. The candlelit procession walks along with a young Joseph and Mary a few blocks around a neighborhood until they reach the last house for the fiesta. Walking through a suburban neighborhood has a very different feel than walking through the cobble-stoned main street of a small village with all community members participating.
I’ve thought a lot about the Posadas tradition this year, and the roles of the pilgrims (those asking for shelter) and the innkeepers (those who have the ability to deny or provide shelter). We’re in tough economic times, and many people are unemployed or fear that they may lose their jobs.
According to the California Employment Development Department, during October, the unemployment rate for Morgan Hill was 15.2 percent, for Gilroy 17.5 percent, and for the unincorporated areas of San Martin the rate was 26.5 percent.
Many of these families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Many are knocking on friends’ and family members’ doors asking for temporary shelter until they get back on their feet.
For many, the doors remain closed – there is no room at the inn. But I’m reminded that the message of the Posadas is one of hope. The ritual of the Posadas is that despite closed doors, you keep knocking. When you knock, you are not alone. Eventually doors open, and once they do, the whole community joins in the celebration. The Posadas is a re-telling of an old story, but not a story without relevance for today.
Mario Banuelos has lived in Morgan Hill for 20 years. He has served on the south County Dayworker Committee and is a member of the Morgan Hill Community Foundation. He is married and has four children.
