Las Posadas & the Kings

From December 16 to Christmas Eve, neighborhoods all over Mexico — and Mexican neighborhoods everywhere else, too — keep Las Posadas. Posadas means "the inns," and for nine nights, the community reenacts Mary and Joseph's search through Bethlehem for a place to stay. Nine nights, people say, for the nine months of the pregnancy — or for a novena, nine days of prayer. Every evening a candlelit procession forms up, often with children leading and sometimes carrying little figures of the travelers, and sings the old song-dialogue at a closed door. Inside the door, the household refuses them. Outside, the pilgrims plead. Until finally the right door opens, the song turns into a welcome, and everybody pours in for tamales, atole, buñuelos, and a star-shaped piñata — its seven points, tradition says, are the seven deadly sins, broken open blindfolded in a shower of grace and candy. Missionaries shaped the custom back in the 1580s at Acolman, near Mexico City, building the pageant partly on earlier Aztec winter observances — and then the people made it their own. It's been Mexico's ever since.

And the season that Guadalupe opens on December 12 doesn't end at Christmas. On January 6 comes Día de los Reyes, the Day of the Kings, when the Magi finally reach the manger — and in Mexico, it's the Kings, more than Santa, who leave gifts in children's shoes. Families share the Rosca de Reyes, a sweet bread shaped like a crown, and whoever finds the tiny baby figure hidden in their slice becomes the host of the Candlemas tamales on February 2. That's why Mexicans joke about the "Guadalupe-Reyes marathon" — one long feast, from December 12 clear to February 2.

In the Grove: here's a faith that travels by candlelight, knocks on doors, and always — always — ends with the door opened wide and everybody fed. That's a theology we can stand behind.