Overview
- Posadas run December 16–24, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging with door-to-door litanies, candlelit processions, brief prayers, and the opening of a host home before songs, food, and a seven-point piñata.
- Guides circulating this week detail how to host the ritual, from printing the call-and-response chant to preparing staples like ponche, tamales, buñuelos, atole or champurrado, and assembling aguinaldo bags.
- U.S. communities are staging public and parish events, including nightly processions on Olvera Street in Los Angeles and programs at churches such as St. John the Baptist in Baldwin Park from December 15–23.
- Coverage underscores the tradition’s syncretic roots, linking pre-Hispanic winter festivities to late-16th-century ‘misas de aguinaldo’ in Acolman led by Augustinian friar Diego de Soria that evolved into today’s neighborhood posadas.
- Reports note an ongoing shift toward secular parties, as priest Julio Carrillo warns that alcohol-fueled festivities often eclipse prayer and song, citing official data showing high consumption rates in states such as Coahuila.