Feliz Navidad

Thanksgiving for us this year was dinner with a few friends in a tiny Mexican restaurant, and although the weather forecast looked promising, it started to rain that afternoon. So we had Thanksgiving dinner on the beach in the rain. The owner of the restaurant did his best to make sure the last-minute cover that he put up kept us reasonably dry. He also did an outstanding job with providing a traditional meal of turkey, stuffing and potatoes with gravy. 

Guadalupe float

Food stands in main plaza

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the 12-day festival of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This festival seems to be more important than Christmas for most Mexicans and it has just finished. Every day is filled with parties, and there’s always a copious amount of food. People from PV and surrounding villages form groups, whether from church, school or work and walk in processions through town in the evenings ending at the Guadalupe Cathedral.
The main plaza next to the church was jam-packed with stands offering food; there’s music and dancing and, of course, numerous fireworks. At 9.00pm, the church bells ring continuously for about 15 minutes and the people who had formed the processions go into the cathedral for blessings and a service. Everything culminates around that time, so there’s music and lots of other noises all happening at once. We only attended two of the nights as it’s a complete assault to the senses!

Pork Pastor tacos

Trying out the cheek cabeza taco

Another staple of Mexican life in PV is the taco stand. There is one positioned on nearly every corner. Recently one evening, we decided to take a walking tour where we ate at six different street taco stands, had churros (fried dough) at another and then finished it off with a glass of raicilla, a homegrown version of tequila or mescal (Jalisco’s version of moonshine). This provided us with a real flavor of Puerto Vallarta. The tacos here in Mexico generally use a type of corn flour, and are soft -nothing like the hard shells that are found in the US. Our tastings consisted of fillings ranging from red snapper and marlin to pork and beef. Steve was much more courageous than I and tried the cheek and tongue cabeza (from the head of a cow). Most of the locals eat at a taco stand a few times a week, and they all have their favorites. It’s considered some of the best food in PV. It took me a bit to get past my concern over possible cleanliness issues but now that I have, I have to agree that the food is excellent!

Yeah! Treat time!!

It’s beginning to feel as if we are now living here, rather than just being on an extended holiday. Our days are getting busier with a variety of activities, and it’s not just because of Christmas coming up. There are so many charity events, and the expat community is very social, so there’s always a lunch or dinner to attend. One of the charities that we will be supporting is a no-kill cat shelter, PURR Project, so we went on a tour of the “ranch” (1/2 acre) last week. There are 150+ cats at any one time, and when we arrived, they all came running because they know that visitors mean food! We each were given a small bag of treats to give out as we wanted. It was tough leaving without taking one or more back with us but we knew that our two wouldn’t tolerate a feline addition to our family.

Visiting the nursery

Love this little one-eyed wonder

PURR has several fund raising events, one of which is a luau on the beach that was held last Friday evening. Unfortunately, the rain gods decided to spice up their evening by making us their entertainment. It rained cats and dogs the whole evening (pun intended). People huddled under palapas, but they didn’t keep out much of the rain, especially if you were near the edge as I was. We didn’t get to watch the dancers that were planned, but it was still a fun evening and one that will be remembered for a long time. Come to think of it, eating on the beach in the rain seems to have become a theme for us. The next big fundraiser will be a fashion show in January, in which I will be participating. The best part is that I get to try on a lot of new clothes. Please let the weather be dry that day as part of it is being held outdoors.

Adding the toppings

Perfection -- and happy chef!

Steve has been honing his bread making skills and is, of course, approaching it very scientifically. This means that more days than not, we have a lump of dough on the counter or proving somewhere under cover. I do have to laugh at his use of a cooking thermometer inserted into dough and experimenting with proving times, temperatures, and amount of yeast, etc. He’s happy and our home constantly smells like freshly baked bread, which would be great except just the smell makes me gain 20 pounds. He’s still making pizza and we recently had friends over for a pizza night where he tried out a couple of new toppings. Each pizza was a big hit and he has already had requests for a repeat performance.

So, it’s now only a few days left ‘til Christmas and this one is going to be a bit different. We’ve spent Christmases in tropical locations before but, this is now our new “normal”; so it’s good bye to the cold and sometimes snow. Doesn't mean we won't visit cold and snow in the future but for now we are happy in the tropics. The stores here are filled with all of the Christmas decorations you could ever want but the little snowmen kind of don’t fit in. Rather than shopping for presents, we’ve had to either transfer money to a bank account or order gift cards. Where’s the fun in that? There won’t be any lovely Christmas cards to open this year as all those also have to be electronic. Any that were sent will probably arrive sometime next spring, if at all. We are having a friend come over for Christmas dinner and we’ll have a lovely day but it will be a quiet one. That’s not to say that it won’t be menos que maravilloso navidad (less than wonderful), it’s just going to be different.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday and enjoy your time with those you love! 

Wishing you peace, joy and love!

Deseándoles paz, alegría y amor!