MEXICO: Too Many Customs

• Share

Fiesta-minded Mexicans start celebrating the Christmas season in mid-December with an old Spanish custom (candlelight processions symbolizing the search for shelter by Mary and Joseph). They conclude it on Jan. 6 with an old Italian custom (giving gifts to children for the Festival of the Three Kings) and an old French custom (cutting up a cake containing a figurine of the Christ Child). Between times, they observe an old Franco-Spanish custom (displaying crèches showing Christ in the manger), an old European custom (hanging stockings), an old English custom (sending cards), an old German custom (decrating Christmas trees), and an old U.S. custom (receiving presents from Santa Claus). In recent years, many Mexicans have come to feel that this is several customs too many.

Last week, as another strenuous holiday season closed, two customs seemed marked for uprooting. Roman Catholic priests and lay organizations denounced the Christmas tree and Santa Claus as "pagan and Anglo-Saxon." The crèche and the Three Kings, they suggested, are more truly Latin. By & large, Mexican fathers, cracking under the strain of two gift days, backed the drive to cast out U.S.-style celebrations. Said one: "I can't afford any more to be Santa and the Three Kings, so my wife and I decided in favor of the Three Kings." That settled, he went downtown to buy the presents his three daughters wanted for the Festival of the Kings: cowgirl outfits from the U.S.