Growing up, December 12^th in my household was a very important day.  I would say that next Christmas, we probably anticipated the arrival of this day the most and in quite a big way. December 12^th marks the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, and as a Mexicana from a Catholic family this was a very big deal to me and to those around me.

On this day Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated in a very special way, especially in Mexico, but increasingly in the United States too. If you grew up in Mexico or in a Hispanic Catholic family, chances are that you are very familiar with the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  In 1531, the mother of Christ appeared to an Indian convert named Juan Diego with a very special message to the Bishop of Mexico City, leaving her portrait on Juan Diego's mantle (or tilma, in Spanish) as proof of her message to the Bishop. This image (pictured to the left) has become an important icon and is kept at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the most visited shrine in the world.  I most recently visited this shrine soon after college with my parents and found it to be such a moving and reflective place.  Our Lady of Guadalupe was declared Patroness of Latin America in 1910 and in 1945 Pope Pius XII declared Her to be the Empress of all the Americas.  You can learn more about this story here.

While December 12th is the main feast day dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, preparations begin 9 days pior with a novena, a special prayer devotion repeated on nine successive days. Each evening, believers gather at a church to pray the rosary and ask for her intercession with their prayers.

I have heard and read that in Mexico City as December 12th approaches, more and more pilgrims arrive at the Basilica each day, attending the novenas in her honor and many camping out in and around the Basilica!  I hope that one day I can be there at the Basilica to celebrate, it's on my bucket list for sure!  Then, on December 12th the main festivities are celebrated with las Mañanitas (the "Mexican Birthday Song"), typically at midnight or early in the morning  and Mass.  Mañanitas are Mexican songs that area traditionally sung to people early in the morning most often on their birthday, but they are also sung on other special occasions, like an anniversary or a seranade. They are traditionally sung to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day, usually accompanied by a mariachi.

Our home parish will celebrate las mañanitas for Our Lady with a Mariachi at 5 a.m., followed by hot cocoa and pan dulce! As a matter of fact, as I write this my parents are in Mexico, attending a sunrise Mañanitas celebration in her honor. Mass is celebrated in the evening, followed by more delicious treats and a piñata for the kids.

I remember getting up so early, around 4:30 in the morning, on December 12th as a child. I would bundle up in my warmest clothes and head to the super early 5 a.m. Mañanita celebration with one of my parents.  In the evening, our entire family would attend Mass, we would have to get there early because it was jam packed.  Kids would be dressed in traditional Mexican clothing, sometimes adults too! People were excited, happy to be celebrating such a wonderful day.  In addition to the song and prayers in her honor, roses are traditionally handed out to the faithful.  Why?   The rose is Our Lady's flower, having asked Juan Diego to bring roses to the Bishop wrapped in his mantle to help prove her message and will to him.  When asked by the Bishop to shop him what he carried in his mantle, Juan Diego opened his mantel, the roses falling to the ground, and Our Lady's image on his mantle.

I lived in Mexico until I was 5 and celebrated this beautiful tradition every year.  That's me in the picture on the left, dressed in traditional Mexican clothes on December 12th when I was 3 years old, as part of the procession.  I appreciated that the tradition stayed with my family when we moved to Chicago and that it grew quite a bit in our church during my childhood. Now I have 4 kids and want to pass on celebrating this tradition to them.  I plan on taking my two oldest to Spanish Mass tonight and enjoying the fiesta to follow, it will be beautiful.

How can you celebrate? By far the best way is to attend a Mass or Mañanita celebration on December 12th.  Check local Catholic churches to see if they are hosting any special events on this day.  In the past I have hosted an Our Lady of Guadalupe party for my kids and our friends, everyone loved it! Check out the pictures from the party.

How to Have an Our Lady of Guadalupe Party

• Ask parents to familiarize their children and themselves with the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe before the party.
• Set up a small shrine to Our Lady in the party area and ask guests to bring flowers to adorn the shrine. Any flowers are ok, but roses are more traditional. The shrine can be as simple or elaborate as you like, but a small table covered with nice tablecloth with an image Our Lady of Guadalupe centered on it would be perfect.  You may want a few vases for your flowers as well on the table.  Votive candles with an image of Our Lady are also very traditional and nice for your shrine. They can be found at many Mexican grocery stores, some chain grocery stores carry them in their Hispanic food section.
• Keep decorations simple, papel picado is a very traditional Mexican decoration and can be made out of tissue paper, this a great project that your kids can do ahead of time.  There are several online vendors that carry an assortment of papel picado as well.   Poinsettias are a native flower of Mexico and are very popular during the Christmas season, they add early holiday cheer to any party!
• Play Mexican music in the background.  I really like Our Lady of the Guitar, it's a beautiful musical pilgrimage to Our Lady.
• Once your guests have arrived, read the story of our Lady of Guadalupe. I really enjoy the book The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie de Paola. I also really like Our Lady of Guadalupe by Fransisco Serrano and Our Lady of Guadalupe in a Box.
• Next, have the guests line up for a procession, with their flowers.  While singing the traditional Mañanitas they can bring their flowers up to the shrine.  Click for the audio to Las Mañanitas.

• Once everyone has placed their flowers on the shrine, lead your guests in prayer.   This can be as simple or elaborate as you like, but we simply had guests recite The Hail Mary in Spanish, which they were to learn ahead of time.

Ave Maria
Dios te salve, Maria.  Llena eres gracia: El Senor es contigo.
Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres.  Y benito es el fruto de tu vientre: Jesus.
Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en hora nuestra muerte. Amen.

• We followed by showing the movie Juan Diego, Messenger of Guadalupe and with a craft. The crafts can be very simple, like printing out coloring pages of Our Lady. At our party I had children decorate their very own tilmas.  I ironed on an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe onto each plain canvas apron and each child personlized it with their name and flowers, with fabric markers.  One of my favorite crafts is this grotto kit for Our Lady.
• Serve a Mexican themed buffet style lunch.  For our party I made enchiladas, rice and beans.  I also served tacitos, a salad and chips with salsa.
• For dessert serve Mexican sweet bread, pan dulce, and Mexican hot chocolate.
• Finish with a pinata!
• We asked guests to bring a small for a local women's pregnancy counseling center.  Guests donated baby items like diapers, wipes, and gently used clothes to help a great cause.
• This website has many wonderful suggestions on crafts that you can incorporate into your party, depending on age of those attending.  You can find more suggestions on how to have a party in Our lady's honor here.

Feliz Dia de Reyes or Feast of the Three Kings!

On January 6, most of the Hispanic world celebrates El Dia De Reyes, the Epiphany.  We remember the day when the three wise men or Magi followed the star to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus,  bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  This is Epiphany on the church calendar, the 12th day after Christmas, also remembering when the Magi arrived bearing gifts for baby Jesus.

January 6^th really marks the end of the Christmas season in Mexico. People start to head back to school and work after having spent time with family and friends during the past few weeks.  Mexican Christmas tradition generally calls for gifts to be exchanged on Dia de Reyes instead of on Christmas day, but it’s my impression that you see gifts being exchanged on Christmas day more and more often, with the traditions of Santa and Christmas trees becoming more popular.

Growing up, my family always celebrated three kings day.  The three kings would pass by our home on their way back from visiting baby Jesus in Bethlehem and, if we had been good, leave our shoes that had been left by the front door filled with candy and perhaps small treats.   My siblings and I ALWAYS made sure to leave our biggest shoes out by the door, for more treat space!

I grew up in a predominately Mexican community on the south side of Chicago, so I knew many people who celebrated this day. Yes, it was not as exciting as Christmas and Santa bringing us the “big” gifts, but I did look forward to waking up on January 6^th and seeing what had been left behind in my shoe by the Magi! As my siblings and I grew up, the tradition of celebrating this day became less important to me, maybe because I stopped believing in the Magi and I focused more on the festivities around Christmas.   However, now that I have small children of my own I want to make sure that my they know of this holiday. They are likely not to learn too much about it from their school or friends, so it’s up to me. My husband is not Latino, but he appreciates our family celebrating my cultural traditions.

If you celebrate today, I hope that it’s a great day, bringing back some wonderful childhood memories. These sites have good explanations on the traditions and history around today’s Dia de Reyes.

Mexico

Spain

Argentina

At Vidacoco, we always talk about the importance of passing down traditions to our children. The Christmas season is a wonderful time to practice sharing the beautiful customs and memories that we remember from our childhood or to make new ones with our families and friends.

It seems like the past few weeks, Christmas traditions have often been a topic of discussion among my friends, at mommy and me classes, and it keeps coming across online and television.  It’s especially nice to hear about the many ways that this season is celebrated in the homes of those that I know, often combining new and older traditions.

Perhaps I find myself reflecting on traditions because I feel nostalgic about my Christmas childhood memories. My parents kept the focus on celebrating the birth of Christ and family, not so much on gifts to be given or received. During the Christmas season, we sometimes visited extended family in Mexico, but always made tamales, participated in the Posada novenas and ate pan dulce and drank traditional cinnamon spiced hot chocolate (Abuelita brand is now a household staple around here!).  New traditions that my parents didn't grow up celebrating were added, like believing in Santa and putting up a Christmas tree.  I don’t remember my parents stressing out about planning things to do or getting done during the Christmas season, they simply remembered their family traditions and added new ones, and they didn't spend much money doing so. Now that I have my own children, I am working on remembering that it's really the non-commercial aspect of the season that matters, but amidst the planning and preparations it's not always easy to do!

In an effort to teach my children about their Mexican heritage, I’m working on incorporating some of the traditional ways in which this Christmas season is celebrated in Mexico too. My favorite Christmas tradition is celebrating Las Posadas. They are a beautiful celebration of processions and parties starting December 16th and lasting for 9 consecutive days in anticipation of Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve. Posada literally means “lodging” in Spanish and they commemorate the journey that Mary and Joseph took from Nazareth to Bethlehem before Jesus’ birth on Christmas. Last year, my husband and I hosted are own Posada party and invited many our friends.  For many of them, it was their first time at a Posada celebration.

My parents taught me to prepare for Christmas with the Posadas. Christmas arrived on Noche Buena, Christmas Eve on the 24th, traditionally celebrated with a large family meal and Misa de Gallo, or Midnight Mass. Traditionally in Mexico, the celebration continues with another large family gathering and meal on New Year's eve and once again gathering for the official end of the Christmas season with la Fiesta de los Reyes Magos (the Feast of the Three Kings or Epiphany) on January 6th.  As a matter of fact, on the Eve of this feast, my siblings and I would, as tradition in Mexico, leave out our shoes (the biggest ones of course!) outside the front door in anticipation of the Three Kings paying our home a visit and leaving some treats behind in our shoes!

Growing up in a mostly Latino community on the Southside of Chicago, these Christmas traditions seemed normal to me. It was mostly at school that I learned about new traditions (the ones my husband celebrated), like the Advent wreath and calendar, baking cookies and Christmas stockings. They are now a part of my children's Christmas celebrations. Really, what I want from it is for my children to know the true meaning of this season, the birth of Christ, and to celebrate it with some of the wonderful traditions I remember, the new ones my husband and I are trying to create for our family and the ones they will want to add...