El Dia De Reyes 2012

I got this picture from a calendar in my daughter's home and it represents today, The Day of the Kings, which marks the end of the Christmas season. American culture is creeping into Mexico and I saw several plastic Walmart Santas, snowmen, and reindeer outside homes and businesses. Traditionally, Christmas gift giving is on January 6th with the three wise men as the benefactors, but the holiday is not as religious as the Orthodox Christian Epiphany celebrations also happening around the world today.

I sat in Stephanie's late afternoon English classes in San Pedro the last two days. Yesterday I interacted with the students for 20 minutes or so, asking and answering questions in conversational English. They were a very bright group ranging in age from 12 to about 30 years old.

At the end of the class, we shared a traditional treat, the 'Rosca de Reyes' (King's Cake). Shaped like a king's crown, this sweet yeast bread has a small plastic figurine representing the baby Jesus inside. The students told me the person who gets the figure has to make tamales for the special dinner.

I didn't get the surprise which is a good thing as tamales are very time consuming to make. Stephanie is baking a fresh Rosca de Reyes today (recipe here) and it will taste much better than the one from the store. And we had a delicious tamale meal in Tepic last week that will count for the celebration today.

New Year's Fiesta

I am behind in posting due to slow/ absent internet service and travel days. In the past week and a half we have travelled from the north of Mexico, across the Devil's Spine to the coast and inland to Tepic, back to the coast for a day, and then north again through Guadalajara. We travelled overnight on buses so no days were lost (just under 30 hours in bus travel). Safety has not been a big concern and with appropriate diligence, Mexico is as safe as other vacation destinations.

A couple of days before the new year, we drove in from town to find a group of people running around the property. My 10 year old niece excitedly asked us if we wanted to help kill chickens for the New Year's Eve party. My brother has a number of free range chickens and an overabundance of roosters, so they were out to catch three of them. My initial urban North American response was "uggh!", especially since I have not eaten meat for a few years now. But these birds had lived a good life unlike the chickens we eat at home and I put aside my prejudices and judgments to watch the chase.

The job was done and my sister-in-law did the plucking and cooking and made an enormous pot of posole. Posole is a traditional soup in the Mexican state of Nayarit which is made with white homily. Lucy soaked the hard corn in lime to open the kernels and then cooked it with the chicken. It is served with fresh garnishes and lime.

Friends and family gathered for the evening and there were fireworks and a bonfire outdoors as midnight approached. I tried to stay awake but we had been at the beach during the day and my internal clock is still two hours ahead on Eastern time. I went to bed and left the celebrations to younger family members who can still sleep in.

Happy New Year!

From the shores of the Pacific Ocean near San Blas, Mexico

Definitely Not A White Christmas

This noisy rooster lives next door to my daughter and her husband in the city where they live in the north of Mexico. The same neighbor also has a pig and a cow in the backyard. Life is so different here, yet the same in other ways.

Christmas lights blink on houses and on posts on the city streets. Mexicans seem to prefer lots of colour and flashing lights. Stockings hang in the window of a house in the neighbourhood. The holiday season extends to Epiphany and gifts are given on January 6th. There are no Boxing Day sales here.

We stayed outside in the sunshine much of the day trying to absorb as much heat as possible. The cement floor and walls hold the cold which is a good thing when it is 40C outside. But this morning it was 4C when I got up and I layered all my tops and wore a scarf in the house. Our daughter washed out a wool hat and it hung frozen on the line. By afternoon it was 20C outdoors and very pleasant for taking a walk.

Winter weather finally arrived in southern Ontario today and I am very happy my travel day was yesterday. Cool as it is right now, there will be no scraping or shoveling my way into work tomorrow. And that is fine with me.

December 24, 2011

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

One of Santa's spies seen in a sycamore tree in Copley Square, Boston MA

I don't have any recollection of Santa before the age of seven or eight and by that time I was old enough to know he likely wasn't real. I do not remember putting out a stocking when we lived in South Africa. I remember Mom decorating a palm branch and spending the holiday at the beach with our family. An over-dressed Santa didn't seem to be a big part of a summer-time Christmas but when we returned to Canada, my brothers and I anticipated his arrival with great excitement. We listened to the radio to hear NORAD tracking his sleigh and woke up early to open our gifts.

Santa sign in Boston's North End

The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge MA has many Santa portraits available in prints, books and other gifts. We really enjoyed this stop on our trip last week. The artist captured the magic of a child's Christmas imagination in many paintings. Norman Rockwell published many poignant Christmas pictures which capture an adult's heart too.

Our children sent hand-written letters to Santa and I still have some of them in a scrapbook. Today's child has email and texting options as well and Santa has to keep up with the latest technology! After all there are three stages in life;- you believe in Santa, you don't believe in Santa and you are Santa.

gonna chk my list 2c 

if ur nawT or nice

bgfgs!!!!!! hhh

sc

'Tis the year's midnight

The best thing about winter solstice is the fact that the daylight hours will start to lengthen, barely, but the march toward spring has begun. Fog fastened sky to the earth today and rain fell light then heavy. Nothing inspired outdoors until darkness fell and holiday lights shone against the black of night. Even people who are of usual good cheer felt weighted with the heaviness of this dull day.

Our patients had to let staff know their plans for Christmas by the beginning of this week. Some families will go out of their way to make sure a disabled loved one will have a few hours outside the hospital for a meal or gathering. In the end, very few will be going out and many of our elderly patients would have no one to spend Christmas with even if they were well.

A local church has a "Longest Night" service on winter solstice each year. It is geared for people who are going through challenging times and do not feel the merriment of the season because of bereavement, illness and loss. Each person in the congregation holds a lighted candle against the darkness that threatens to envelop them and there are songs, readings, and scriptures of hope, joy, peace and love. I listened to the service on the radio this evening and enjoyed the encouraging reflections that were shared.  

Today I heard about a program called Santa for Seniors for the first time. There are toy drives for needy children and food hampers for needy families but I have not come across a program that reaches into the lonely rooms of our elderly who are separated from family by distance, disinterest and death.

'Tis the year's midnight...* and for some it is a season of loneliness and personal darkness. I must take the time to shine the light of caring and friendship their way. Perhaps I will be the one needing that light in the future.

*A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day by John Donne

Sing a Song of Christmas

Grandma gave us money to buy a stereo component set the first Christmas we were married. The speakers were three feet high and the large amplifier supported a turntable and cassette deck. We enjoyed LP records for several years and accumulated many cassette tapes as well. I still have our vinyl collection but the cassettes were not as durable. The knobs broke off the old stereo and we gradually stopped using it when we started buying CD recordings. This year our CD player gave up the ghost just before Christmas so I bought $20.00 speakers for my iPad, loaded our CD collection onto iTunes and enjoyed hours of seasonal music in a new portable fashion.

There are many timeless Christmas compositions which most everyone recognizes at this time of year. I have heard one too many recordings of "O Holy Night" and will leave the room if I hear "Christmas Shoes" again. (The movie is worse than the song). But I love listening to Christmas music performed by British choirs, Sarah McLachlan, Michael Buble, Josh Groban, Barbra Streisand, The Carpenters, Anne Murray, and many other contemporary and classical artists. I enjoy playing anything that is not too difficult.

A highlight of our Boston trip was a visit to Symphony Hall to hear the Boston Pops holiday concert. We watch it each year on television but it was a pleasure to see the grand, acoustically perfect building. Part of the performance we saw was recorded for a new live CD to be released in 2013. I believe some of next year's concert will also be included. The program included readings of The Grinch, The Night Before Christmas, carols, classical selections as well as the traditional sing-a-long.

In the past 35 years we have gone from vinyl to cassettes to CDs to mp3 and other digital recordings. I wonder what we will listen to 30 years from now? Live performances may be the only thing that stay unchanged.