Latino Voices

From Food to Art, Celebrate Mexican Christmas Traditions in Little Village


From Food to Art, Celebrate Mexican Christmas Traditions in Little Village

In Mexico, one or two days just aren’t enough to celebrate the holiday season. 

There, the traditional Christmas posadas are nine days long, and the parties keep going well into the new year.

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In Little Village, the OPEN Center for the Arts, 2214 S. Sacramento Ave., wants all of Chicago to get a taste of Mexico’s most beloved holiday traditions. The first, a one-evening posada, is slated for Dec. 22.

“The community comes together, they walk around the neighborhood, go to a few houses in the neighborhood who already said it was okay to come by,” OPEN Center’s Omar Magaña says with a laugh. “Then they’ll come here where we do the whole celebration” with tamales, pozole, piñatas and an arts workshop.”

The next event on Jan. 6 is Rosca de Reyes, where an 8-foot cake with a tiny plastic baby baked into it makes enjoying the cake a bit of a gamble.

“We invite all the community to come and cut a piece of it…and if they get the little baby, then for the following event, they will be volunteering to help us organize the event,” Magaña said.

That final event is La Candelaria on Feb. 3, which Magaña describes as simply a day to enjoy a feast with the community.

Magaña says all are welcome to stop by to enjoy any or all of these traditional celebrations.

“All these beautiful things that are created, from the piñatas to the food to all the activities to all the singing we’ll be doing – that is art. And that’s why we’ve got to keep it going,” he said.


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