Christmas (Navidad) in Mexico

Esther Joy King writes at RELEVANTmagazine.com about her experiences celebrating Navidad in Mexico. Her parents are missionaries in Juarez and their family had a unique role to play in the celebrations.

But for my family, Christmas started months before Los Pasadas. For months leading up to Dec. 25, people from the States would send stuffed animals, dolls, play cars and every other kind of toy imaginable to my family in Mexico. Boxes of toys would start to fill closets around the house. By Thanksgiving, we would start piling the boxes in our living room and, by Christmas day, our home was packed to the brim with boxes of Christmas gifts. We would move boxes out to the cars just so we could have room for a Christmas tree. But these toys weren't for me.

The presents were for the boys and girls in the community who would be invited to a big Christmas party/church service on the three nights after Christmas. After each service, the children who came would receive a gift sent down by Americans months beforehand.

Having just been out in the pushing and shoving of Americanized Christmas, I long for a simpler celebration of Jesus' birth like Esther does. Feliz Navidad!