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| Nothing can beat the Nutcracker at Christmas |
What
Kicks off the Christmas season better than seeing the Moscow Ballet performing
the Nutcracker? Only watching it in The Majestic Theater, one of the most
lavish over-the-top, yet gorgeous theaters around. It’s very aptly named. The
Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went to our second ballet in this theater.
Built in 1929 and designed in a Spanish Mediterranean style, it's filled with
countless details. You could sit for hours and still not notice all of them.
The
Majestic seats around 2,275 and the night we attended the Nutcracker
performance, almost every seat was filled.
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| The Majestic Stage |
Since
there is considerable Hispanic influence here, we’ve been enjoying diverse
cultural celebrations and the season has only just begun. Christmas lights
downtown were turned on the night after Thanksgiving so on Saturday as we were
fighting our way through traffic (actually we weren’t moving most of the time)
we were able to appreciate several of the brilliantly lit decorations.
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| Beautiful! |
The
city is filled with poinsettias, which makes sense because they are native to
Latin America and many of them come from Mexico. I absolutely love the
poinsettias as they are extremely cheery with their bright red flowers, but I
have to enjoy them other places because we can’t have them at home. They are poisonous
to cats, and Sadie loves to eat plants!
As
with all cultural traditions in Mexico, there’s always a legend behind them and the Poinsettia has its own.
Supposedly, a long time ago there was a poor little Mexican girl called Pepita
who didn’t have a present to give the baby Jesus at the Christmas Eve Services.
As Pepita walked to the chapel, her cousin Pedro tried to console her by
telling her that even the smallest gift, given by someone who loves him, will
make him happy. Pepita picked a handful of “weeds” along the side of the road
and put her bouquet of weeds at the bottom of the nativity scene. Suddenly, the
bouquet burst into bright red flowers, and everyone was sure that it was a
miracle. From that day on, Poinsettias have been known as the ‘Flores de Noche
Buena” (flowers of the good night, referring to Christmas Eve).
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| Shoulder to shoulder to get tamales. |
We
participated in another tradition over the weekend by going to a Tamale
Festival. Although neither one of us is a fan of tamales, we had to go see what
it was all about. After a number of days of cold, misty and rainy weather, the
day was sunny and warm, perfect for an outdoor festival. Forty vendors were
selling tamales for a dollar each – it was such a bargain. The crowd was
shoulder to shoulder in most places, and the lines were incredibly long at
every stand. In addition to the tamale stands, there were, of course, a few
beer stands where the lines were just as long. Musical entertainment was provided by various groups
in an arena built into the side of the Riverwalk and was a lot of fun. A few in
the audience got up to dance to the delight and laughter of the rest of us. There
were also mariachi groups strolling through the crowds.
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| Fun music to go with the tamales and beer. |
Of
course, I had to find out why tamales are such a big deal here at Christmas. It
seems that making tamales is a tradition that is over 5,000 years old.
Evidently the Mayan warriors took women along with them to cook and because
they were always on the move; they needed food that was easy to carry and eat.
A tamal wrapped in corn husks worked perfectly. It’s not clear why but much
later, the tamales became food for festivals and became very popular in the
southwest US for Christmas. Everyone
seems to have their own recipe, and we noticed major differences in the ones we
ate at the festival. Yes, we each sampled four different kinds!
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| San Antonio Riverwalk at dusk. |
After
leaving the festival, Steve and I walked most of the Riverwalk to take in the
lights. It was a warm evening; the Rio Taxies were decked out with loads of
Christmas lights, and they were packed with people enjoying the lights and
decorations from the riverside shops and restaurants. One of the taxies even
had a caroling group. All of the shops and restaurants along the river were
completely decked out with lights and most of the restaurants had gigantic lines
of people waiting to be seated. More photos can be found at this link (if the
link doesn’t work, paste the link into your browser) https://plus.google.com/photos/102840684536112573599/albums/6090548827291903585
Our
festive day was a great way to get into the holiday spirit. Our Christmas
decorating is done, well at least the top 2/3’s of our tree is decorated. The
second day it was up Ali decided he could reach underneath the branches and
knock off the balls. We had Christmas balls flying around the room and even
into the bedroom. Each time he knocked one off, I put it back on the tree
higher up. It has spoiled his fun and the tree looks kind of strange – as if
someone left in the middle of decorating and didn’t finish it.
Now
that Christmas is just around the corner and as you are getting ready for the
holidays, I hope you stop and breathe and remember it’s not the gift but the
thought that counts! Wishing you and your family a happy holiday season and
continued joy into the new year.
