This humble Mexican creche idealizes the spirit of Navidad in San Miguel de Allende. Felices Fiestas!
A blog about any holiday in San Miguel de Allende would fit under the category “Livin’ la Vida Dulce” because the sweet life in SMA includes many holidays, fiestas and celebrations. It matters not whether you’re a Canuck visiting from Calgary, a hip Chilango from Roma in Mexico City, or a stateside newcomer, Navidad—Christmas—is a sweet celebration in San Miguel.
If you stopped dreaming of white Christmases long ago—unless that was the color of the sand at your holiday hotel—San Miguel is the place to enjoy the colors: red poinsettias, green laurel boughs, silver-grey cobblestones, and the bouquet of architectural colors dotting our Tuscan-like hillsides.
Having long dismissed the consumerism spirit, your blogger also finds immense pleasure in the simple festivities in which a 450-year-old village indulges: the nightly Christmas posadas, the holiday carols, warm atole on cool evenings. Reverence. Hospitality. Warmth.
Just three nights ago, I pulled down a narrow cobblestone neighborhood lane—impossible to back up or turn around—to be stopped midblock by a posada. The street crowd of about 30 varied in age from four to ninety, and while not one poor soul seemed able to sing in tune, they all sang reverently as they asked for “room at the inn.” I simply turned off the car lights, shut off the engine and sat, transported back a century or two. Four years ago, my impatience would have reflected my lifestyle at the time; that night I just watched, humbly, with eyes welling over. It was long after the final neighbor spilled inside, a warm mug of atole in hand, before I started the engine and drove by this home now overfilled with holiday spirit.
This Christmas Eve, a handful of us in a three-car caravan loaded with blankets, gloves, canned goods and fresh oranges—with a few stuffed toys for good measure—visited the regional dump where tent-dwelling families light up like Christmas trees at the sight of a fresh orange. We visited villages in the campo where blankets are treasured and gloves are unknown. And, finally, we made it back to Centro and the little old abuelita my friend has almost adopted—the one by Banamex who has no teeth left—and ensured she was warm and cared for and loved. Those were the presents we exchanged with our friends this Christmas Eve: the gift of giving.
And from all of us at Alma Realty, we’d like to give you the gift of an especially happy holiday. Felices Fiestas!