La Posada offers an old-fashioned Christmas

The customs may be different and the food out of the ordinary, but the end result was a fun-filled afternoon of old-fashioned Christmas joy. Laughing children and relaxing adults completed the perfect Christmas picture.

"La Posada" is a liturgical event that commemorates the pilgrimage of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem and their asking for lodging. The tradition has many regional variations and in some form is practiced in varying locations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. "La Posada," the Spanish name for this celebration, is usually translated as "the lodging."

The event which was held last Saturday afternoon in the parish hall of St. Edward the Martyr Catholic Church was free and open to the public, although donations were accepted. All of the funds that were raised are being given to the Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank.

Rima Givot arrived just before the procession was to begin and was bundled up in a snow suit. She did not want to miss the festivities saying, "I was at the Spanish class when this was being planned."

She was not sure if she would stay until the end for the breaking of the piñata, as she and her family had a lot on the calendar for the day, and they had planned a major snow event.

The celebration began with a reenactment of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary looking for lodging in Bethlehem, where they were forced to travel for the Roman census. At Saturday's event everyone fell in line for a candlelit procession that wound its way through the building and outside; stopping at various locations to ask for lodging, the group was repeatedly turned away. The asking for lodging was done with the singing of a traditional chant in Spanish.

The lyrics were provided on a handout for the Spanish-challenged.

Jirka Novotny has been a resident of Sisters for about a year-and-a-half. He had discovered the event through a newspaper article, and friends also mentioned it to him. He was born and raised in the Czech Republic but was unsure if there is any analogue to the Posada in the Czech culture.

"Also, remember that I grew up in Czechoslovakia during communism, and all these kind of events were proscribed," he said.

He left the Czech Republic shortly after the fall of communism and had not really seen any religious events until he came out from behind the old Iron Curtain.

At last, the procession arrived at the kitchen and sang the chant. This time the response was different, and they were welcomed in to stay. That was the signal to begin the feast.

The food was prepared by a number of volunteers from the community. A bouquet of aromas and flavors filled the parish hall with foods from the four corners of the earth. There were Asian foods, Italian dishes and a wide variety of Mexican and Central American cuisine. From the fiery to the mild, there was a flavor to satisfy every palette.

There was the singing of traditional carols, which was done in both English and Spanish. Then the high school's French club arrived to help celebrate the festival, and carols were sung in French. The music contributed to the international flavor that had been set through the multinational fare of the la Posada feast.

Later, the little ones were invited for the breaking of the piñata, a traditional game for children. The normal tradition is for the children to be blindfolded; however, this time the blindfolds were not used. The piñata was raised and lowered as the children took their turns at attempting to break the party favor and release the hard candies that filled the creation.

As it turned out, the manufacturer must have run low on paper maché and substituted Kevlar. The piñata seemed invincible but finally succumbed to repeated attacks by very determined children.

Mario Montesinos was in attendance with his wife and two daughters. He has attended posadas all his life as he was born in Mexico and brought the tradition with him when he moved to America. He reflected that the Christmas celebration in Mexico is a bigger event than here and commented, "We start out on the 12th of December to December 25, and we have a big party at every house we go to, and we do piñatas and have fun for about 15 days."