A grand posada: Church brings Mexican holiday tradition to Racine

By Mick Burke

Monday, December 18, 2006 2:10 AM CST

RACINE - There are many ways to celebrate Christmas and a local Lutheran church demonstrated one version Sunday with its first Mexican posada.

At Primera Iglesia Luterana, 3001 Carpenter Ave., the vast majority of the parish has Mexican roots. So, appropriately, the church held posadas de Navidad.

"It's really a strong trend in Mexico every year during the Christmas season," said Lizette Barrientos, a part-time musical director there.

A posada is a symbolic re-enactment of the story of Mary and Joseph as they searched for a place where Mary could give birth to her baby, Jesus. The couple is repeatedly told there is no room for them until they end up at the stable where Jesus is born.

In a true posada, celebrants would go from house to house, singing "Las posadas" at each, noted the pastor, the Rev. Pedro Lopez. But, expecting typical Wisconsin winter weather, this one was held in the church's gymnasium. Tents represented various inns or stops where Joseph, Fernando Gomez, and Mary, Jacqueline Lopez, are turned away.

Traditionally, parishioners would also re-enact the posada day after day, leading up to Christmas.

Within the Mexican posada tradition, at the church there was room to represent other cultures of the participating parishioners as well. For example, the first "house," or tent, was that of Santos and Shirley Ortiz. It was decorated to display her German heritage, as demonstrated by a "Nutcracker" theme. His Puerto Rican heritage was represented by the Puerto Rican flag and a lace cloth from that Caribbean nation.

At the second house, Anita Alviter showed her Mexican heritage with wooden bowls, a bean pot and a molcajete, a stone bowl in which chili peppers are ground.

And the third house was designed as a dwelling of Jesus' time, where Edmundo and Beatrice Rosales wore shepherds' garb.

The church expects the posada ceremony to become an annual ritual as it is in Mexico. Its popularity here was shown by the fact that at least one or two other posadas were being enacted this past weekend in Racine.

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