Decorating for Christmas

I spent last Thursday (Thanksgiving) and Friday decorating for Christmas.

On a cabinet in the living room I placed the Nativity scene which I have had since I purchased it on a trip to Mexico in the early 1980s.

Many Mexican homes will have very elaborately landscaped Nativity scenes which include Bethlehem and a crowd of villagers and animals.  The clay figures of the residents of Bethlehem typically look like Mexican villagers.  I have collected them over the years, and, now that I have lived in Mexico for the past two Christmas seasons, I have added considerably to the collection.  

Last year I simply laid out green felt on the living room floor in front of the window.  I put some books under the felt to create hills.  This is a picture of the layout that I posted on the blog last year.

Since then, you may recall, I bought a long low table for houseplants which is in front of the window.  I arranged some other small tables around it and covered everything with felt.  I set my skinny Christmas tree on one of the small tables.  I created a river and waterfall using aluminum foil covered with blue cellophane.  I had a couple bags of stones from last year, and the bag of "heno"... similar to Spanish moss... to naturalize the scene.

Here is this year's scene, which I think came out better than ever...

Turning the Page to December

The last page of the calendar that I made for 2024 using photos that I took of Mexican art, features a work that is appropriate for the season.

It is an example of one of the "yarn paintings" done by members of the Huichol people who live primarily in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit.  The Huichol have long created these works of art by pressing yarn onto a wooden board covered with wax.  They now use commercial yarn which results in more colorful paintings, and because of the tighter weave of the yarn, more detailed images.

My calendar for 2025 has already been printed and given to friends and relatives as gifts.  In January you will see the theme for next year's calendar.

At the Jamaica Market

It is always interesting to visit Mexico City's Jamaica Market, but the best times to see it are in the weeks leading up to Day of the Dead and during the Christmas season.

When I go to Jamaica, I usually stop first at one of the restaurants within the market building... Carnitas Paty.

I ordered my usual... two pork tacos and a glass of "tepache", a beverage made of slightly fermented pineapple.  I had a seat right in front of the guy chopping the pork (the one with the mask on).  He put on quite a show, wildly chopping to keep up with the orders.  That front row seat might not appeal to the squeamish.  I always order "maciza", the cuts of pork that we are used to.  However, carnitas aficionados would tell you that is the least tasty part of the pig.  You can also order skin, stomach, ears, tongue or snout.  If you are sitting by the chopping block you can immediately recognize the pigs' noses right in front of you.

After my lunch, I wandered around a bit.  Since Jamaica is the main flower market in the city, it is no surprise that this time of year, poinsettias are everywhere.

There is also a plethora of piñatas hanging from above.  You will find piñatas in the market any time of year, but never the abundance and variety that you will find during the Christmas season.

At the conclusion of a "posada", the neighborhood processions that are held for nine nights before Christmas, the children try to break a piñata.  For each "posada" there are one, two, maybe three piñatas, so a LOT of them are sold at this time of year.

After checking out the flowers and the piñatas, I got down to business and went to the stalls around the outside of the building that sell Christmas paraphernalia.  So much of the merchandise is cheap junk imported from China.  However, you will still see some stalls selling traditional Mexican crafts, such as the clay figurines used in Nativity scenes.

I wanted to buy some more decorations for my (artificial) Christmas tree.  Since it is one of those skinny trees, I needed small ornaments.  Most of the stalls were selling plastic ornaments from China.  Finally I found one shop that sold glass "esferas" (that's they call the Christmas tree bulbs) that were made in Chignahuapan, a town famous for its Christmas decorations.  The vendor had five designs of small bulbs, and I bought a mixture of two dozen.  Later I found another stall with "esferas" made by Indimex, a company based right here in Mexico City that makes blown glass ornaments.  So bought another dozen of small bulbs.  I like a tree that is really full of ornaments, and I wasn't satisfied with the tree last year.  These purchases should do the trick!
  

 

Getting Ready to Decorate

Before decorating the inside of the apartment, there were things that I needed to buy.  

First of all, I needed to buy green felt to set down for my nativity scene.  There aren't any fabric stores nearby, so on Wednesday I took the Metrobus and went to a branch of "Parisina", a nationwide chain of stores that sell fabrics and sewing supplies.

I found bolts of felt, but first you have to pay at the register, and then an employee cuts the length that you want.  However, on my way to the cashier I found bags of felt, in lengths of one meter.  So, I just bought several of those instead.

From there I decided to get some exercise and walk about a mile to the Lázaro Cárdenas public market in Colonia del Valle, the neighborhood adjacent to where I live.  There are no Christmas markets in Mexico as there are in many European cities.  However, most markets, at this time of year, have stalls surrounding the perimeter of the market building selling Christmas items.

I am always amazed that they are already selling cut Christmas trees.  The holiday season here lasts until January 6th  (Day of the Magi Kings).  Are those trees going to last more than a month?  Or will they have dropped all their needles by January?

There are lots of stalls selling Christmas decorations that are most certainly made in China.

Of course there are plenty of poinsettias, which are native to Mexico.  Notice the crates to the left.  They are filled with something the Mexicans call "heno".  The dictionary definition of "heno" is hay, but this is something more akin to Spanish moss.  It is sold in the markets this time of year to make the landscape of your Nativity scene look more natural.  Last year I bought a bundle of moss... but it is damp and dirty and makes a mess.  So instead I bought a kilo bag of "heno" for my Nativity scene.

I still had a few more things to buy, but I was tired and walked the mile back to the apartment with my purchases.  The next day I went to a nearby "papelería" or stationery store and bought some sheets of blue cellophane for creating a river passing through my Nativity scene.

I then headed to an electronics store inside a nearby mall to buy batteries for the strings of lights that I have on my tree.  They were all out of that kind of batteries.  However, as I walked back toward the apartment, I passed a photography shop.  They had the correct batteries,  and they were a brand-name, so maybe they will last for the entire season.

I had almost everything I needed to start decorating, but I still wanted to go to my favorite market in Mexico City, the Jamaica Market.

Enter Christmas

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers from the United States.  Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Mexico.  I will be spending the day decorating the apartment.

I wanted to buy a nice wreath for the door of my apartment, but one that is made in Mexico.  So many of the Christmas decorations here as well as in the U.S. are made in China.  When I was in Europe this year, I went into a couple of Christmas shops, and even there half of the merchandise was made in China.

One evening, a few days ago I was in  the nearby neighborhood of San Pedro de los Pinos.  I passed by a store that I have visited a few times that specializes organic products.  Looking through the window I could see beautiful Christmas wreaths hanging on the wall.  Although the store was already closed, there were still some people inside.  One of the employees opened the door, and I asked where the wreaths were from.  He told me that they were from the town of Chignahuapan, a town in the state of Puebla whose main industry is the manufacturing of Christmas decorations.  The next day, I returned to the store, and I bought one of the wreaths.  They were very expensive.  The one I selected was one of the smaller ones, and it cost 3500 pesos or 171 U.S. dollars.  But they were  hand-made and so beautiful that I could not resist.

So, my Christmas decorating began with hanging this wreath on the door.

The petals of the poinsettias are actually made from hand-blown glass and painted with a matte finish.

 

I also set next to the door a large figure of a nutcracker that I bought last year.  It comes from a shop not far from Alejandro's family's house.  The owner makes the resin figures from molds and then paints them by hand.

I think I might go back to the shop the next time I am in the neighborhood and buy another one.

The entrance to the apartment is decorated.  Now it is time to move on to the inside.

From the Roof

It has been quite a while since I have climbed to the roof of Alejandro's family's house to see if I could see the volcanoes.  When Alejandro takes his sister to work early in the morning, there is a spot along the route where they can see the peaks when the sky is clear.  On Monday Alejandro said that the volcanoes were visible.  So, yesterday, I went to the roof just before dawn, braving the nippy morning temperature of only 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  The two mountains, Iztaccíhuatl to the left and Popocatépetl to the right, were silhouetted against the brightening sky.  Uncharacteristically, "Popo", the active one, did not appear to be fuming.

Wicked

Last Thursday the movie "Wicked" premiered in Mexico City, and Alejandro and I went to see it at the World Trade Center cinema on Sunday.

The movie is based on the hit Broadway musical, which in turn is based on the novel by Gregory Maguire.  "Wicked" is a revisionist version of the children's book "The Wizard of Oz", in which the life of Elfaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is viewed sympathetically.  I read the novel, and quite a few years ago Alejandro and I saw an excellent stage production in Spanish here in Mexico City.

I thought that the movie was very good.  The recreation of Oz and the acting, particularly by the actress who played Elfaba, were superb.  Fans of the musical will disagree with me vehemently, but, frankly, I don't think that the musical score is that memorable.  I have never left the theater humming any of its songs.  However, the singing by the two leads was excellent.  (Just to show you how clueless I am about modern pop stars...  I have heard of Ariana Grande, but throughout the movie, I thought she had the role of Elfaba.  Later, I found out that she played Glinda, the Good Witch.  The Wicked Witch is played by actress and singer Cynthia Erivo.  I had never heard of her, but, as I said, she did a wonderful job.)

The movie is very long... it runs 2 hours and 40 minutes, and it only covers the first act of the Broadway musical.  Part 2 will be released next year.  It seemed to me that the movie brought out the dark elements of the novel much more than the Broadway show did.  In Maguire's reimagining of the children's book, Oz is an authoritarian state in which the Wizard stays in power by playing upon the fears of the populace of anyone who is different... be they green-skinned witches or talking animals.  The one who is truly wicked is not Elfaba but the Wizard.