It’s posada season in Mazatlán! Everyone you talk to is a bit bleary-eyed from all the partying going on this time of year. “Posada” is a term for parties traditionally held during the nine nights just prior to Christmas: December 16 through 24. A posada can be a private party held in a family home, but it is more typically a street or block party or an end-of-the-year celebration for company employees or club members. If you didn’t attend a posada last night, you no doubt heard the banda music from the party down the street, well into the early hours of the morning. The badge of honor is to be able to brag that you partied till 4:00 or 5:00 am—desvelarse or stay up till morning. Yes, even if, like me, you are nearly fifty, or if you are seventy, or older. Posadas have no age limit.

Music and Food

A typical posada has music, of course, preferably live music. There may be dancing, and partygoers often sing villancicos or carols. Typical posada dishes include tamales, buñuelos, pozole, colación (candy mix), and atole or ponche. Ponche is made from seasonal fruits like tejocote, guava, plum, mandarin, orange, or prune, sweetened with piloncillo (a brown sugar) and perfumed with cinnamon sticks or vanilla. Some piquete (sting) may be added for grownups—a bit of rum or tequila—to make the ponche “happier.”

Piñata

Children at a posada enjoy breaking open a piñata in the shape of a seven-pointed star. It is said the piñata originated in China as a springtime festival treat. Marco Polo transported the idea to Italy, where piñatas came to represent the triumph of good over evil. The seven points of a traditional Mexican Christmas piñata represent the capital sins, and the stick that the children use to break open the piñata represents the power of faith to overcome those sins. The people watching the child with the stick, hitting the piñata, sing this song:

Dale, dale, dale,
 no pierdas el tino;
porque si lo pierdes,
 pierdes el camino.

In English:
Hit it, hit it, hit it, 
don’t lose aim;
because if you lose it, 
you will lose your way.

The Pastorela

Traditionally a posada also includes a pastorela, a procession commemorating Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem for the census. As the Bible tells us, they searched everywhere for lodging and were turned away, there being no room at any inn. Sometimes a boy and a girl dress as Mary and Joseph, and Mary may even ride a burro. In some pastorelas you may see shepherds, cows, kings—it can be an entire Christmas pageant.

More typically, however, the guests at a posada carry candles, and they parade from house to house along a street or block. One person or several carry a nacimiento or manger scene. Some members of the posada group stand outside, and some stand inside the gate of each house. The people standing outside, carrying the nacimiento, ask for lodging, usually using the song or chant below. The people standing inside the house gates turn them down, again following the chant or song below. This pattern is repeated at each house on the block: the Holy Family and group outside plead for lodging, and the group inside the house turns them down in a threatening manner. It’s a sad and moving scene. Below is the song: