Friday

Tonight was the latest last hurrah, a Christmas party at the boss's house. This was a Posada, a literal lead-in party to the Christmas season. It's a catholic thing: beginning shortly after the Virgin of Guadalupe Day festivities (December 12), there begins the sporadic reenactment of certain key parts of Joseph and Mary's search for bed and board that long ago Christmas season. The Posada is a tribute to their conversation with the innkeepers who relegated them to their fated barnyard neonatal ward. At the beginning of these parties (before, traditionally, the children beat the shit out of a piñata effigy of the north star), the gathered celebrants sing a dialog of request and refusal back and forth between two sides of a room (or traditionally, between the inside and the outside of the party house), in a sort-of pre-Christmas carol. Tonight, before we could dig into the catered buffet, the room was divided, Spanish lyric sheets were passed around, and many of the guests sang the strange and stuttering refrains spoke by the Virgin and Joseph (on our side) and the bastard innkeepers (on the other). It was really far more amusing than I am making it sound. The Mexicans celebrate Christmas far more than I'm used to: traditions stretch from the Virgin's day to the day of the Three Kings, Epiphany. Between the twelfth of December and the sixth of January, there's a little Christmas-related holiday most every day, and certainly every weekend. Saying goodnight after the Posada tonight proved tough enough that I mostly skipped it and just snuck out. I am going to miss Monterrey, and I am going to miss it soon. We spend tomorrow packing, enduring one last house inspection, and calling people to say goodbye. Unless that's too tough, of course. [Cavin]