Christmas Season in Villa de Garcia

Memories of life in Villa de Garcia - 1954-1960 

"took the skin of my big piggy and had them turn it into rinds

It produced a whole truck load and three bundles pulled behind.

Piggy Piggy, flat nose piggy, oink oink oink."

Try to picture six second graders, two in each of three large pig disguises one inside moving the hind legs and one moving the front legs and the head singing this long song about a large fat pig that managed to produce an incredibly large amount of food from all parts of his body.  I was inside the middle pig working the hind legs.  It was one of the most memorable and fun times of the 1954 Christmas season.

One of the most enjoyable times of the year was the Christmas season.  And no, it wasn't because of the expectation of presents, we didn't get presents on Christmas like the kids rest of the world seemed to get.  What made the Christmas season so much interesting and fun were the Posadas and the annual school Christmas pageant.  I am sure the season of advent was a religious time when the faithful wait for the birth of Christ.  To me, and all kids my age - except a few who took church too seriously, It was the time to PARTY!  Although the season is all of December, To us kids, the fun eating and partying of the season started with the celebration of the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12th.  It continued with the Posadas from December 16th to the 24th, the School Christmas Pageant a week before Christmas and ending up in the "Grand Finale" on Epiphany on January 6.  Why January 6 you may ask?  It was when the three Wise men came to visit and the day we got our presents!  Of course, by that time we were so exhausted of partying that presents were almost an anticlimax.

Like I said, to me the Christmas season began on the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe,  Food stands all over the Plaza with all kinds of treats that we only found on Christmastime.  The colorfully dressed Matachines- groups of Indians dancing in Honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe and dancing in procession in the church, the endless fireworks and rotating gunpowder displays and the mariachis singing in during Mass.  To me, it was the greatest show on earth and I could see everything since I was at the altar watching it all.

The Posadas were a lot of fun, except for the praying of a rosary every night for nine nights, but the party afterward was compensation enough for all the praying we had to do.  The Posada started with a procession of fifty to one hundred people.  We started the procession about a block away from the house that hosted the posada that particular night.  Since I was one of ten altar boys, carrying one of the several candles, I got to walk in front of the two kids representing Joseph and Mary followed by the priest and the rest of the people were behind him.  The procession started with the priest chanting the Litany and the people in the procession responding "pray for us,"  Of course, everything was done in Latin so the response was "ora pro nobis."     The priest recited a list of what seemed to include every single saint in heaven and asking them to pray for us.  To me,  it got tiring and monotonous after the fourth one so you can imagine how I felt after more than fifty. 

We always got to the door of the host's house at the end of the Litany.  When we got to the house, we began the song asking for posada - asking for lodging at the inn.   We knew the whole posada song by heart, but my favorite part was when the innkeeper responded:

Then if it is a queen
Who requests it (lodging)
How is it that at nighttime
She's traveling so alone?

I always thought that was so funny - and I still do to this day.

Once we got through all the preliminaries and Joseph and Mary managed to get lodging, the the priest started what seemed to be the never-ending repetitive prayers that made up the rosary.  When the rosary was done, the altar boys put out the candles, took off our alb, and we began to dig in to the tamales, the buñuelos and we all lined up to take our chance at breaking the piñata that was full of candy and other little toys.  After some more eating and some hot chocolate, the party broke up and we all went home to get ready for the posada the next day.

Unknown to us kids at that time, the Annual Christmas Pageant came together through the efforts of a group of parents, teachers, nuns, and volunteers.  In retrospect, the activities of the school and church were very well organized.  My mother had some cousins who loved to volunteer in church and school activities  They were part of a larger group of parents and teachers who organized church and school activities, they made and painted the scenery for shows, designed and help make the costumes for the kids, organized each show and help us rehearse.  Each grade had their own show and our second-grade class had two shows that year and I was in both of them.  One was with the whole second-grade class singing two songs Pretty Michoacan and Silent Night.  The second show was being part of the pig song.  The costumes had the pigs in a sitting position with one kid sitting on a stool operating the back legs and the other kid kneeled on a chair over the other kid and operated the front legs and the head.
 

The customs were made from a cotton sheet with the features of the pig painted and the whole thing was stuffed with straw.  We got in it by going underneath and put our arms through the straw to operate the front and hind legs.  While we were performing the song I got a very bad itch on my nose and I pulled my hand out of the right hind leg for a moment to scratch myself.  When I tried to put it back in, I could not see and could not find the hole for the leg.  Unfortunately, I stuck my hand through the seam of the costume that happened to be in the crotch section of the pig.  I heard a bunch of laughing and screaming but thought nothing of it.  I realized that was not the leg and I pulled my arm back and finally managed to find the leg to continue the dancing of the song.  I was later told that all the laughing and screaming was because my arm looked like the pig's penis moving around to the song.  Without a doubt, our act was the hit of the evening.