Las Posadas: The Mexican Christmas Season and Terminology.

Dear colleagues:

Every year when December comes along I find myself answering questions from friends and acquaintances about how Latin America, and specifically Mexico, celebrate the holiday season. American friends who want to organize a celebration for their children, school teachers who are staging the festivities for the school play, community center activists who want to celebrate the season with a cultural event, come to me to learn about the traditions, food, celebrations, and vocabulary.  Because this year has not been different, I decided to write about the most Mexican of these traditions: The posada. In Mexico the fiestas decembrinas begin unofficially with the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and last through January 6 when they celebrate the Día de Reyes (Three Kings Day) but the festivities are in full swing with the beginning of the posadas. Mexicans celebrate the posadas every evening from December 16 to 24. They actually started as a Catholic novenario (nine days of religious observance based on the nine months that María carried Jesus in her womb). The posadas re-enact Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of shelter; the word posada means “lodging” in Spanish.

Traditionally, a party is held each night in a neighborhood home. At dusk, guests gather outside the house with children who sometimes dress as shepherds, angels and even Mary and Joseph. An “angel” leads the procession, followed by Mary and Joseph or by participants carrying their images. The adults follow, carrying lighted candles.

The “pilgrims” sing a litany asking for shelter, and the hosts sing a reply, finally opening the doors to the guests and offering Mexican traditional Christmas dishes such as hot ponche, a drink of tejocotes (a Mexican fruit that tastes like an apricot/apple) guavas, oranges, sugar cane, and cinnamon mixed and simmered in hot water and served with rum or brandy; fried crisp Mexican cookies known as buñuelos, steaming hot tamales, a staple of the Mexican diet since pre-Hispanic days, and other festive foods.

Spanish priest and chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún observed that the first thing Aztec women did when preparing a festival was to make lots of tamales: tamales with amaranth leaves for the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli, tamales with beans and chiles for the jaguar god Tezcatlipoca, shrimp and chile sauce tamales for the ancient deity Huehuetéotl. Besides tamales stuffed with turkey meat, beans and chiles, the Aztecs used what they harvested from the shores of Lake Texcoco, including fish and frogs, to fill tamales. Sahagún tells us that pocket-gopher tamales were “always tasty, savory, of very pleasing odor.” The Maya also produced artistic, elaborate tamales; toasted squash seeds and flowers, meat, fish, fowl, and beans were all used as fillings. Deer meat, especially the heart, was favored for special offerings. Besides being steamed, tamales were roasted on the comal (grill) or baked in the pib, or pit oven.

Finally, after everybody ate and had fun, the party ends with a piñata. In some places, the last posada, held on Christmas Eve (December 24) is followed by midnight Catholic mass, a tradition that lives on in countless Mexican towns.

These are the lyrics to the traditional posada litany.  I have included the original Spanish lyrics and a widely accepted English translation that rimes with the tune. Now you can sing the litany in Spanish or in English at your next posada, or even better, have a bilingual posada and sing the litany twice.

Español		English
Outside   Singers	Inside   Response	Outside   Singers	Inside   Response
En el nombre del cielo os pido posada pues no puede andar mi esposa amada.	Aquí no es   mesón, sigan adelante Yo no debo abrir, no sea algún tunante.	In the name of Heaven I beg you for lodging, for she cannot walk my beloved wife.	This is not an inn so keep going I cannot open you may be a rogue.
No seas   inhumano, tennos caridad, que el Dios de los cielos te lo premiará.	Ya se pueden ir y no molestar porque si me enfado os voy a apalear.	Don’t be inhuman; Have mercy on us. The God of the heavens will reward you for it.	You can go on now and don’t bother us, because if I become annoyed I’ll give you a trashing.
Venimos rendidos desde Nazaret, yo soy carpintero de nombre José.	No me importa el   nombre, déjenme dormir, pues que yo les digo que no hemos de abrir.	We are worn out coming from Nazareth. I am a carpenter, Joseph by name.	I don’t care about your name: Let me sleep, because I already told you we shall not open up.
Posada te pide, amado casero, por sólo una noche la Reina del Cielo.	Pues si es una   reina quien lo solicita, ¿cómo es que de noche anda tan solita?	I’m asking you for lodging dear man of the house Just for one night for the Queen of Heaven.	Well, if it’s a queen who solicits it, why is it at night that she travels so alone?
Mi esposa es   María, es Reina del Cielo y madre va a ser del Divino Verbo.	¿Eres tú José? ¿Tu esposa es María? Entren, peregrinos, no los conocía.	My wife is Mary She’s the Queen of Heaven and she’s going to be the mother of the Divine Word.	Are you Joseph? Your wife is Mary? Enter pilgrims; I did not recognize you.
Dios pague,   señores, vuestra caridad, y que os colme el cielo de felicidad.	¡Dichosa la casa que alberga este día a la Virgen pura. La hermosa María!	May God pay, gentle folks, your charity, and thus heaven heap happiness upon you.	Blessed is the house that shelters this day the pure Virgin, the beautiful Mary.
Upon opening the doors at the final   stop, the tune changes, the pilgrims enter, and all sing these final verses   in unison:
Entren, Santos   Peregrinos, reciban este rincón, que aunque es pobre la morada, os la doy de corazón.		Enter, holy pilgrims, receive this corner, for though this dwelling is poor, I offer it with all my heart.
Oh, peregrina   agraciada, oh, bellísima María. Yo te ofrezco el alma mía para que tengáis   posada.		Oh, graced pilgrim, oh, most beautiful Mary. I offer you my soul so you may have lodging.
Humildes peregrinos Jesús, María y José, el alma doy por ellos, mi corazón también.		Humble pilgrims, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give my soul for them And my heart as well.
Cantemos con   alegría todos al considerar que Jesús, José y María nos vinieron a honrar.		Let us sing with joy, all bearing in mind that Jesus, Joseph and Mary honor us by having come.

I wish you all a happy holiday season.  Please feel free to contribute to this post by sharing some holiday traditions from your home countries.

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