The shining tin stars are stretched out above the cobblestone streets. The fairy lights hang from the trees, and the poinsettias fill the garden. Storefronts are decked in holiday apparel.
And tonight, the community Christmas tree was lit amid a splendid fireworks display.
Feliz Navidad, from San Miguel de Allende.
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I must say, the Dia de Los Muertos parade was spectacular this year. It felt more like a parade than a very compact promenade. As it has in the past.
If you follow me on Facebook, then you’ll find nothing new here. I posted all these photos right away to Facebook, and it has become one of the busiest and best posts I have ever hosted on my page.
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For more than a week, San Miguelians have been parading and dancing nightly in celebration of the Feast of Saint Michael. When it’s your namesake, you go all out. Right?
And on the last day, you put it all together in the “Grand Desfile de Danzas Locales y Foraneas” — the Grand Parade of Local and Foreign Dances.
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Today’s celebrations of San Miguel Arcangel only theoretically started at 3 a.m. They have been running non-stop for the past week here in San Miguel de Allende. All through last night, the sounds of music and fireworks drifted over the moon-kissed night skies from all directions.
At 3 a.m., the Alboradas converged on the plaza in front of the Parroquia San Miguel de Arcangel. These are the colorful giant twirling stars — one of the happiest sights you’ll see as processionaires dance and twirl their way into the square with marching bands and mohigangas in tow.
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It was such a relief last week to learn that my old friend Bob Gannon crashed his 56-year-old Cessna 182 just outside of Las Vegas.
Of course, he walked away from the crash. The plane wasn’t called Lucky Lady Too for nothing.
Let me interject that I am simply relieved to know that Bob is still alive. And flying. I confess that I periodically check the news for recent Bob Gannon and Lady Too exploits — or an obituary. I haven’t found either in years.
Both to my distress and relief.
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Update: The wall of masks has been sold to a lovely couple here in San Miguel. He very quickly offered to buy them all to augment his own collection. Thank you to everyone who expressed an interest in the entire collection or in individual masks. You are all appreciated!
In another life, Rose Alcantara traveled the world, settled in The Gambia for a couple of years, and eventually returned to California to raise two beautiful children.
Along the way, between 1978 and 1992, she collected masks, the way other people collect souvenirs.
Well, not really the same way. Souvenirs are mass-produced. She looked mostly for one-of-a-kind creations from the original artists.
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In front of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arc Angel — all day Friday for the feast day of Señor de La Conquista — hundreds of brightly costumed dancers express the most joyous form of worship imaginable.
And exhausting.
Long before noon, it was hot out there. Really hot. I’ve never seen headdresses come off so quickly and water get consumed so rapidly as today. Can you blame them?
But always there were smiles.
So, what’s this all about?
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We were in Mexico City, enjoying coffee and a bite to eat at a corner restaurant just a block off the expansive Parque de Mexico, in the popular Hipódromo, Cuauhtémoc, neighborhood.
The young and athletic hostess Ayse Lang, who had seated us at the sidewalk table of Barrio Café, stopped by to see how our late-morning coffee break was going.
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“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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Once more, the Mercado de San Juan de Dios is transformed into a wonderland as the Christmas marketplace is open for business.
Extra booths have been erected around the market and they are filled with ornaments, Nativity figures and accessories, decorations, Baby Jesus figurines of many hues and sizes (and gorgeous gowns of swaddling clothes), garlands, pines, sparklers, elf costumes, devil’s pitchforks, cuetlaxochitls, Santa caps, treats, and holiday fantasies.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 