A Christmas caught between culturas

By Nadine Gilmer
Sun contributor
I felt a prickling of guilt as I sawed into the trunk of the knee-high tree and attached it to my dog’s harness. She barely noticed it on the walk home except when she looked back and saw its drag marks in the snow and scattered pine needles. “What a pitiful tree,” I told the dog. She just wagged her big black tail, knocking off more needles.
My parents refused to get me a bigger Christmas tree since they had decided we would go to Mexico this year. But I wasn’t yet ready to exchange my Christmas for a Navidad.

I had bragged to my friends that I would get to celebrate American Christmas early, but before we left on the trip my parents and I simply opened our presents while standing in the kitchen. It was no more exciting than opening the daily mail. The only present I received was a cheep MP3 player that I had picked out with my Dad, since the trip to Mexico was considered my “big present.” Nevertheless, I made a sincere attempt to be optimistic about my predicament.
I imagined a piñata strung up in my Grandma’s downstairs patio. I remembered the cool feeling of the tile on bare feet and how nice the air would feel where it was warm. But then I realized there would be no pictures of Santa, no tree, no cookies, no cozy Christmas morning watching the snowfall outside. Instead, we would be subjected to an hour-long mass of Jesus’ name echoing off every surface of the cathedral.
It seemed that if the Christmas ritual wasn’t celebrated in the exact form that I had come to know ever year, it wasn’t Christmas. I concluded that my thirteenth Christmas would be substituted for a cheaper Mexican alternative.
As we walked through O’Hare Airport, my love of travel collided with my disappointment. “I don’t want to go to Mexico,” I told myself. “I do not want to go to Mexico for Christmas. Any other time would be fine. Not Christmas.” My parents looked at me with stern expressions. I looked up at the familiar hallway of flags above me and realized I happened to be under the Mexican flag — its green and red banners buttressing an eagle with a serpent clutched in its mouth. I imagined a Santa hat in the eagle’s beak rather than the snake.
Being inclined to motion sickness, I also dreaded the drive to come through the mountains of rural Mexico, even though I enjoyed gazing at the scenery and what looked like pages and pages of National Geographic photos flowing by like highlight clips of my childhood. I loved the enormous green mountains and volcanoes, ramshackle farms, horses tied to fences next to the road, and endless rows of Agave plants in the winter. But my favorite part was always the small towns, so cultural and contradictory: a corvette parked next to an ancient statue; driving through streets made for horses, ancient dark women with braided hair sitting cross-legged and begging for money as a child walks by talking on a cell phone.
Upon our arrival, a puddle of light spilled over the uneven sidewalk and cracked street. Its source was the open door of my great aunt’s candy store and the doors to my Grandma’s house. As usual, my abuelita was squinting into the street for us, accompanied by several other family members yakking away. Her entire face lit up and she came quickly to us, her arms held high above her.
My Abuela hugged me tightly, with the strength of a person ten times her size. “I missed you,” she whispered in my ear and clasped my elbows so that she could look up at me. Her eyes lit up with tears and enthusiasm, and she squeezed my hands, “Niña preciosa,” she whistled through her teeth with the utmost conviction and reluctantly let me slide out of her grip so that she could greet my mother. I wondered to myself how such a tiny person could engulf people so well.
My first view inside my Grandma’s house was the traditional nativity scene: a paper mache cave (every Mexican child knows that Jesus was born in a cave not a barn) with a little porcelain Jesus sitting in the hay and the wise men gathered around him and Mary. Next to this stood a fake, midget Christmas tree. Old memories of past Christmases filled me and I stopped to breathe in the warm, inviting air, which still smelled slightly of dinner. The Mexican air implored me to dance, to laugh and to speak loudly in Spanish. Life flowed constantly in Mexico, not halting for a word too loud or an emotion over felt, but to my tired body, stiffly resisting culture, it seemed like breaking china, or more aptly put, a Mariachi band horribly out of tune.
After everyone had gone I sat on the last rung of the iron staircase and watched my abuelita make me hot chocolate; the real kind made with cacao that comes in big, sugary chunks. I watched her use the wooden instrument to stir it on the stove. The process both fascinated and appalled me to see the primitive means of making a simple cup of chocolate. Once she finished she handed me the foaming mug and smiled at me, once again teary-eyed. Our eyes met, and the emotion in hers seemed too honest for me. I broke the moment with a word, “Gracias.” She hugged me and I realized that I had grown quite a bit taller than her. “Dios Mio you’re so big!” she said and I gritted my teeth.
On our walks through the streets, the Christmas decorations left me culture-shocked and confused. Jesus was everywhere and there were no signs of Santa. Red, white and green flags appeared, hung from first floor balconies that formed a thick canopy of Mexican flags that nearly blocked out the sun. Stores and homes opened up life-size nativity scenes, and my little Mexican town slowly became Bethlehem. And since when was Christmas so HOT!
The insides of Mexican houses are also a style of their own. Besides being generally more open and airy than American abodes, their floors are covered by flat tiles that sound like a tomb or a chapel when walked on with flip-flops. The furniture is typically fancier but spaced farther apart in a way that seems to generate coolness. Every room has a crucifix, and the frames of the paintings on the walls are painted gold. The entire setup is made for optimum coolness and simplicity.
My abuelita’s room, where my father and I chose to rest, is very fresh and open and includes a balcony on which she keeps a healthy garden that overlooks the street. The whitish-purple tile is always cool on bare feet, and her bed is like a large and lonely ship, floating in memories and moored to this world by a modern television. On windy nights the white ‘70s fabric curtains twist and dance, stretching so far they almost touch the bed. And the stoic crucifix watches all activity. My Grandma’s room always disconcerted me because it seemed like death was near. Perhaps it was because my Grandma had been the only one to inhabit it for some time. This was her lonely room, the place she went when she was alone. For someone in my family, being alone is a serious illness. Imagining her lying alone in her bed, flipping through channels made me want to cry.
I spent Christmas Eve in that room, curled up in an old wicker rocking chair in the moonlight. It seemed eternal. I could not sleep, my head throbbed and my nose ran constantly from an awful cold I had picked up. Suddenly, interrupting my misery and snot, a shy voice of a younger cousin announced that my mother was calling my name. I realized that the shouts coming from downstairs had turned to one solitary voice, “Mija! Vente!”
I followed my cousin down the stairs and joined my family at the door to the street. They all huddled together, silently for once, and looked outside. My mom took me by the shoulders and pushed me to the front of the crowd. A procession of white garbed people was marching through the street with candles and singing Mexican Christmas carols with joyful solemnity. Ahead of them was a girl dressed as the Virgin Mary, riding a donkey and holding a baby doll, and man dressed as Joseph beside her. A small breeze blew through the lime trees and into my face, clearing my sinuses for a moment, and I enjoyed the sweetness on the faces of the singers who stopped at our house to engage us. Not to mention the smiles on the faces of every one of my relatives.
I forgot what made Santa better than baby Jesus as I listened to little white-robed angels sing, “Gaspar, Melchor y Baltazar son los reyes magos…”