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Sister Luz Eugenia Alvarez Speakss of Customs in Durango, Mexico, her home

Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

Christmas means so much more than the exchange of gifts, Sister Luz Eugenia Alvarez said.

A native of Durango in northern Mexico, Sister Alvarez is a novice with the Adorers of the Blood of Christ and has worked with the diocesan Office of Hispanic Ministry. She shared some of the Christmas traditions of her home.
The “Posadas” are among the strongest of her memories growing up in Durango.

The tradition, brought by Franciscan missionaries from Spain, is a novena prayed the nine days preceding Christmas, she said.

Each evening a family in her neighborhood hosted the posada which involved praying the rosary. People would be chosen to carry statues of Mary and Joseph on a platform from house to house where the group asks for shelter for the holy couple.

At each stop, the group outside sings words asking for shelter like: “My wife Mary can travel no more because she will be the mother of God.”

A group inside the house sings the answer: “We are sorry we cannot open the door. We cannot receive you.”
These verses are sung six times. At the last stop, the group is invited inside where tamales and a special punch is served.

Children are invited to break a piñata and share the candy and treats inside.
The traditional piñata is shaped like a star, which Sister Alvarez said, represents the Christmas star.

The star is held over the heads of the children as the stars in the heavens. When the star falls to earth, the gifts that are showered on the children represent God’s blessings showered on all of us.

Of course, she said, these days piñatas come in all shapes and sizes, but the original shape was that of the star.
After the neighborhood celebration, families would go to Midnight Mass, sometimes called Misa de Gallo or Rooster’s Mass because of the time it was celebrated.

Homes are also decorated in a special way with a corner or an entire room set aside to display the Nativity scene.
“We would make hills of papier maché and gather a kind of moss” before placing statues of the Holy Family, shepherds and other figures into the scene, Sister Alvarez said.

Gift-giving was also a custom in the Alvarez household, but Santa Claus did not bring gifts. The baby Jesus did. The question before Christmas was: “What will the baby Jesus bring you?”

He usually brought toys and clothes, once roller skates and another time a volleyball, she remembered.
The last few Christmases when she visited her family, Sister Alvarez asked her adult siblings — she is one of nine children — not to exchange gifts. The children, of course, received gifts.

At home, she stayed with her mother and four of her sisters.
“We prayed together; we read Bible verses; we sang Christmas carols and then went to Mass.”
After Mass and the family supper, she asked them to write a greeting card for Jesus.
“I read a reflection about Jesus going to homes and saying that nobody noticed it was his birthday.”
Her family members made and decorated cards. Then, she asked them to tape their cards to their backs (with help, of course).

Family members were then invited to write positive things about that person on the cards. “It looked like a train as they wrote on each other’s cards,” she said and laughed.

When the cards were read, “it was very touching,” she said, to see what her brothers and sisters said about each other’s gifts.

“I asked them not to bring gifts,” she said and explained: “We are the best gifts to give to each other. We are also the best gift to give to Jesus.”

Although she will not be home for Christmas this year, she said her family will carry on this “new” tradition.
They will focus more on the gift they are to each other “embodied in the reality of the family,” she said. “I wanted to give them what I received in religious life so they can participate in this relationship with Jesus.”