Oaxaca - Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is a big event in Oaxaca. The streets are full of people celebrating, especially on Alcala and in the Zocalo.
The traditional parades, called Posadas, representing the journey of Mary and Joseph, or just calendas in general, have a float of children dressed as Mary, angels, etc. These are accompanied by a brass band, people carrying torches, and others in large puppet costumes.
In the past, this would go on all evening with churches trying to outdo each other. Of course, during COVID this was all shut down for a couple of years. While most celebrations have returned and even grown, the calendas /largely have not. It's understood that the city government doesn't support them, though no one seems to know why. That seemed clear as the part of the traditional route was closed off and they had to open a secondary one during the event.
Last year there were just two small groups, but this year there were more than double that and most of them were larger and more elaborate, though far from those of years past.
But it was good to see them doing them again, and maybe there's hope that the tradition will return in full.
We were there with the Rick Bayless family, who are staying at the same inn we are.
After returning to our apartments Rick prepared a dinner to which we were invited. As each apartment only has a few sets of plates, glasses, etc. We pooled them from our various apartments and set up in the largest of the apartments, which was unoccupied for the night.
We finished after midnight, so we all slept well.
