Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Just crèche-ing it: A tale of two Mangers

“Bob,” many of my Google-adverse friends ask at this time of year, “what does the word ‘crèche’ mean?”

Well, my little Wikipedia-bereft amigos, crèche comes from the Latin word cripia which means crib or cradle.

Unless you are British. The British, being British, have a completely different meaning for the word, mainly, I suppose, so they can have another excuse to complain about North American English. The British sided with the French on this one and think that a crèche refers to a day-care center.

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photography, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende

Christmas Market (updated): Like sifting through holiday boxes in Grandma’s attic

Strolling through the Christmas Market at Mercado de San Juan de Dios in San Miguel de Allende is a lot like rooting through the boxes of holiday decorations in your grandmother’s attic.

Amid all the tinsel and strings of lights and shiny garlands and Manger figurines there is a lot of cool stuff that would look great on your tree or mantle or coffee table. Some of the designs look unchanged over the decades.

I’ll bet you could process the whole history of Christmas ornamentation in a walk around the Mercado.

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