There hasn’t been much to write about lately, but I thought “Merry Christmas” was in order for all our friends and followers.
Here in México, most people celebrate on Christmas Eve, or Noche Buena. That’s when families celebrate and exchange gifts. The big meal on Christmas Eve, or maybe Christmas Day, is tamales for the working classes and turkey for wealthier folks. Bacalao, or salted cod, is also a common holiday dish.
Leslie and I had a New Orleans-style shrimp dish for Christmas Eve, so nothing traditional but muy sabroso (very tasty) nonetheless. For Christmas breakfast, I made a nice scramble with pork and chicken tamales on the side. We’re going to two open houses today where turkey will be on the menu, so we’ve got traditions covered.
I will leave you with this fun poem, taken from one of the Facebook pages Leslie frequents. It’s meant for gringos living here in the Lakeside area. Enjoy! And if you have trouble translating some of the Spanish words, go to DeepL.com, which is my favorite translation program — better than Google Translate, and free also!
¡Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo de tus amigos en Ajijic, Jalisco, México!
We finally got our new front door! The frosted glass allows lots of light into the house, and the screened side panels open to let cool breezes flow through.
This is the second Christmas in México for Leslie and me, and this year is much busier than last. We’ve already had the Riviera Alta neighborhood Christmas party and the annual Carol Sing and Pot Luckat St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. We’re joining other families for Christmas dinner at the home of neighbors Barbara and John, and dropping into at least one “open house.”
Award-winning Polenta Bites With Mushrooms.
We also enjoyed the CASA — Culinary Arts Society of Ajijic— Christmas party. Leslie presented in the “appetizer” category: Polenta Bites with Mushrooms. She overcame some problems with the polenta and won first place! Her presentation was very good, but the consensus was that the taste of the mushrooms was maravilloso (mara-vee-YOH-so, marvelous)!
And I’m not trying to brag here because my part in this is very small, but the St. Andrew’s choir has been hitting it out of the park the last few weeks. We did “Ave Maria” by William Gomez (a native of Gibraltar) a few weeks ago — in Spanish. Click on the link to hear a small choir (like ours). If you’re interested, go to this video to see the words at the bottom of the screen. Our friend Judy had people in tears with her soaring mezzo-soprano solo. We’ve worked hard on the Christmas Eve anthem: “There Is No Rose” by Philip Stopford. The chorus in that video performed a cappella, and we will too.
Here in México, Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena, is more important than Christmas Day. Families usually go to church for the Misa de Gallo (ME-sah day GAHY-oh), a late-night mass celebrating the Messiah’s birth. Family is very important to Méxicanos, especially on Nochebuena. A big family dinner may include tamales, pozole (poh-ZOH-ley, a hearty corn-based soup) or roasted chicken for most. Richer families may be able to afford a Spanish stew of dried cod and potatoes called bacalao a la vizcaina (bahk-ah-LAHO a la veez-cah-EEN-ah), or a dish called revoltijo (rev-ol-TEE-ho) that combines wild greens with dried shrimp fritters in a rich mole sauce. There’s more, like traditional turkey (pavo) with a rich stuffing based on ground meat or sausage, but I’m getting hungry!
Family members often exchange gifts on Nochebuena and the niños try to bust open a piñata. These are special piñatas with seven points, representing the seven deadly sins. The person trying to break the piñata is usually blindfolded to represent blind faith as a way to combat evil. Here’s a short video I took during the Christmas party at Olé México, where I’m taking Spanish classes:
The festivities often go into the wee hours — sometimes until dawn — with music playing constantly. That means Christmas Day is usually quiet, since most are still sleeping.
What are you thankful for? Leslie and I are thankful we live in Ajijic, Jalisco, México. The climate is nearly perfect, almost everything costs less than in the U.S., and we’ve made great friends here among the locals and the ex-pat community. But before we talk about Thanksgiving, let’s briefly address something a lot of you are thinking about: Safety.
We don’t know what happened when nine people in a convoy of black SUVs were killed recently in a remote area just across the border from Douglas, Ariz. Some say cartel gunmen mistook them for a rival cartel. Others don’t buy that, saying they were targeted because their farms were over-using scarce water resources, hurting local subsistence farmers. We may never know. Leslie and I are glad that since that incident, only one person has asked us, “Are you safe there?” I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt — I believe he was being facetious. Mostly.
The short answer is that we feel safer here than we did in the U.S. Sure, there’s violence in this country, just like in the States. But it’s almost all between rival drug cartels. The difference here is that innocent bystanders rarely become victims. Granted, we live in a small-town environment. That kind of thing may happen in big cities like Guadalajara but not to the extent it does in Chicago, for example, where you can get killed by a stray bullet while driving on the Eisenhower Expressway! See articles in the Chicago Tribune at least once or twice a week — like the woman with six grandchildren who had just parked her car in front of her house when a bullet struck her in the face. Almost never happens in México.
Bottom line: None of the ex-pats in this beautiful community fear violence of any kind. The cartels leave you alone unless you mess with them. And if they start shooting, it’s generally far away from populated areas — and they hit what they aim at, unlike Chicago gang members who don’t shoot straight.
Our friend Louie serves cornbread dressing while Kate prepares to dish up roast turkey at the Harvest Comida. Our new rector, Father Jim (third from left), also helped serve.
The Lake Chapala area is blessed to have thousands of ex-pats, mostly from the U.S. and Canada. While those of us from the U.S. celebrate Thanksgiving near the end of November, Canadian Thanksgiving is in early October. So Lakeside celebrates two Thanksgivings!
Homemade pies were a big hit at the St. Andrew’s Harvest Comida.
St. Andrew’s Anglican Church has an annual Harvest Comida (ko-ME-dah, Spanish for “food”) about halfway between the two Thanksgiving celebrations. It’s the biggest event of the year for the Social & Hospitality Committee, and Leslie is a member of that group. In fact, she was co-chair of this year’s event, along with our Canadian friend Sylvia. More than 80 people enjoyed roast turkey with all the trimmings, courtesy of Chef Pedro at Ajijic’s Go Bistro, one of our favorite restaurants. Dessert was a variety of pies made by the members of the S&H Committee. Leslie’s pumpkin pie went fast, as did her mincemeat pie.
These fanciful figures, called alebrijes (al-le-BREE-heys), at the Feria Maestros del Arte were carved from solid wood and painted by hand.
Another recent event was the annual Feria Maestros del Arte, sponsored by the Ajijic Society of the Arts. This is an opportunity for artisans from all over México — some of them from indigenous tribes — to show and sell their creations. We took a long look at the huaraches — a type of pre-Colombian sandal. Maybe next year. We also considered some small carved animal figures, but we don’t have a good place to display them. Maybe next year. I finally settled on a cotton short-sleeved shirt with a Mayan warrior embroidered in relatively subdued colors.
Our neighbor Margaret entered this gorgeous arrangement titled, “Inner Peace, Love and Joy.” She put a lot of work into this!
Leslie and I also attended the Garden Guild show at a beautiful hacienda just a short walk from where we used to live in the village. From the outside, it’s just a brick wall with a door in it. But walk through that door and you find a sprawling home with a nice pool and a very well-equipped kitchen. It’s been used as a bed & breakfast in the past. There’s even a chapel!
Our friend and neighbor Margaret is an active Garden Guild member. She has given us cuttings from her garden to jump-start ours, and she developed a rough plan for making our back yard look better. We enjoyed seeing her floral arrangement and those of other Garden Guild members.
The Garden Guild’s community service project over the past year has been replacing foot bridges at three spots on Ajijic’s malecon. When we lived in the village, I went for a jog on the malecon every morning. Those bridges were the only treacherous part of the run, and now all three bridges have been fully replaced. I don’t jog there anymore, but I really appreciate the Garden Guild’s efforts.
Next time, more on why Leslie and I are enjoying our life in México.
Hasta luego!
This artist at the Feria Maestros del Arte was making and selling beautiful hammocks.
An artist works on a Catrina figure. Some of them were quite elaborate.
The site of this year’s Garden Guild show. This event seems to attract some of the best-dressed grinos and gringas in Ajijic!
In the last post, I said one part of the plan for San Diego was to spend the holidays with our daughter Stephanie. Another part was to continue being warm — or at least warmer than we would be if we were still in the Chicago area. So far, so good.
One of the upsides to living in California. Great wines!
It was over 80° F. on Thanksgiving Day here in San Diego. Leslie and I enjoyed a great Thanksgiving dinner with Stephanie. The list of things we’re thankful for begins with Steph. Being here in San Diego to share the holidays with her ranks right up there. And leftovers, of course. I’m always thankful for leftovers!
We got the festivities started a little early. On Nov. 18 (the Saturday before Thanksgiving), we enjoyed a “Friendsgiving” celebration with Stephanie and more than 40 of her closest friends. The hosts provided a roast turkey and a turducken. All the women brought a side dish and all the men brought two bottles of wine. There was a lot of great food, and a lot of wine! Leslie made her famous home-made cranberry sauce (way better than that gelatin stuff out of a can) and Stephanie made some amazing mashed potatoes. The party was on the rooftop of a condo building where one of Steph’s friends lives. Long walk for us — almost a whole block from where we’re living now.
Plans for Christmas Day haven’t been formalized yet, but we had dinner with Stephanie last weekend and helped her put up her Christmas tree. In keeping with tradition, we watched the 2003 Will Ferrell movie “Elf.”
A small part of the crowd at “Friendsgiving.” We were the second- and third-oldest at the party. One other set of parents was there: David (he’s 70) and Patty, a neat couple we enjoyed meeting.
This week Leslie and I have been going to a number of communities in and near San Diego to see if maybe we could live here. We still plan to live outside the U.S., but San Diego has always been “Plan B.” There may come a time when we would need to be closer to Stephanie — driving distance rather than a potentially long flight.
There’s a Farmers Market every Saturday morning, year-round, in the Little Italy neighborhood of San Diego. Lots more than just fruits and vegetables: hummus, sauces, jellies, bread, cheese, you name it.
So far we have visited places as close as North Park, La Mesa and El Cajon, as well as farther-flung haunts such as Carlsbad, Temecula and Poway. We also drove through the coastal villages of Solana Beach and Encinitas, both of which are very similar to Carlsbad. And we have a few other places to check out.
The leading candidates appear to be Carlsbad (a quaint beach town) and Temecula (inland, lots of wineries). It’s jarring, though, to look at tiny apartments — two-bedrooms, about 850 square feet — that would cost us three, four, even five times as much as a nice furnished home or condo would in Mexico.
And so far, all the independent senior housing we’ve seen has been at a very high price and includes three meals a day in the facility dining room. We’re not interested in that — not yet, anyway. We want to cook most of our own meals. If you’ve tasted Leslie’s cooking, you understand.
One of the desserts we enjoyed at Friendsgiving. Couldn’t resist including this! Leslie says the turkey is made of fondant, a type of decorative icing for cakes.
UPDATE: We’ve been struggling with where to go after San Diego. The original plan was to spend some time in Costa Rica before heading back to Europe to check out France and Italy. But we couldn’t seem to find appropriate housing in our preferred area of Costa Rica, the Central Valley. The other problem was how to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, which is Feb. 6, 2018.
We always try to be flexible, so here’s the new plan: A Panama Canal cruise for late January and early February. That would allow us to see a bit of Costa Rica, as well as some of Panama and Colombia. It would also get us from the west coast to the east coast while crossing the Panama Canal transit off both our bucket lists!
Getting to the east coast (Florida) sets us up to take a repositioning cruise to Europe (up to four weeks). That should make for a nice vacation — like the one we did last year in the U.K. — and it’s a little less expensive than airfare. Plus it gets us to Europe in spring when the temperatures are more amenable. Yes, we’re still leaning toward Mexico for our retirement home, but we need to give Europe another shot.
More on that later. I leave you with photos of Stephanie’s cats, Louis and Piper. They’re both Maine Coons, which is the third most popular breed in the U.S. right now.
Ex-pats in Mexico 