Christmas Around the World: Mexico
For Day 7 of our Christmas Around the World unit study, we traveled to…
Mexico!
Christmas in Mexico is huge! Mexicans begin their Christmas traditions with the first 9 days, or Las Posadas, starting on December 16. ‘Posada’ is Spanish for ‘inn/lodging’. These 9 days, or Posadas, represent the part of the nativity story where Mary and Joseph are traveling to Bethlehem. Mexicans like to decorate their homes with evergreens and paper lanterns. They also celebrate with a piñata and a party every night! I highly encourage you to read about Las Posadas in full detail here.
Santa does bring a few gifts on Christmas Eve, but Santa is far from the focus of Christmas in Mexico. People go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve and have family dinners. There are a lot of fireworks celebrations!
Christmas trees are becoming more popular, but the majority of Mexicans decorate with a lifelike nativity. Sometimes they even fill an entire room!
The Christmas festivities go on until January 6, which is Three Kings Day. This celebration honors the three wisemen meeting baby Jesus and bringing him their gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh. This is the time when Mexican families also celebrate with gifts.
Fun Facts
- The poinsettia is a major symbol of Christmas and originated in Mexico.
- People in Mexico also celebrate Day of Innocent Spirits on December 28, which is held to remember the innocent babies killed by King Herod’s order when he was trying to kill baby Jesus.
- Popular Christmas dishes include roast turkey, tamales, pozole soup, and bunuelos.
- Rosca de Reyes, or Three Kings Cake, is a cake often made for The Epiphany, or Three Kings Day on January 6. This cake is shaped like a crown or ring and topped with dried fruits and nuts. A baby Jesus figurine is baked into the cake and whoever finds it is the ‘godparent’ of baby Jesus for the year and is in charge of making the tamales for another celebration on February 2.
- Feliz Navidad is how you say Merry Christmas in Spanish!
What We Did
We began by finding Mexico on a map! We also incorporated our history lesson into our day, as we learned about the Mayans.
We then watched the following videos:
We read The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola.
Next, we made poinsettia ornaments! We found the instructions here. We also found poinsettia coloring sheets here.
Finally, we ended the day making bunuelos!
Only 3 of my 4 kids were here for the bunuelo-making, but the 3 had a lot of fun!
You can easily find a recipe online somewhere. Make sure your oil is hot and we wish we would have rolled our dough even thinner! But they were still good and very similar to an elephant ear!
On to country number 8 tomorrow!