Posted by Elizabeth

I am on a plane back to Albuquerque today, left pondering the events of the past week of my Christmas in Mexico.  But the things that stand out to me aren’t events at all.  They are moments – simple moments, that have been forever etched into my mind.

One night we played poker with my mother-in-law, Cecilia’s, poker buddies, a group of women from all corners of the globe who come together to drink tequila, eat good food, and take one another for a few pesos every Thursday.  Cecilia’s friend, Pilar, told me, “Jueves son sagrados.”  Thursdays are sacred.  I had never played poker, nevertheless a game conducted in Spanish, and I was nervous.  Nervous to be out of my comfort zone.  Nervous to be out of control. But I soon learned the names of the different cards, how to pass, how to call, how to raise, and how to begin having fun. Regardless of barriers of age and language, we were soon a well-oiled machine in sync, collectively ooing when the right combination of cards was placed on the table, and sighing in disappointment when they weren’t.  My dad, who speaks very little Spanish, was soon raking in the chips and sharing telling glances with me to help my game along.  I squealed and clapped my hands when I won my first round, and when we settled our bets at the end of the night I came out money ahead, and wondered what I had been so nervous about in the first place.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember how many rounds I won, but I think I’ll remember a night where everyone had an equally good time.

A few nights later, Cecilia and I took over the kitchen to prepare classic American dishes for a very Mexican Christmas.  Cooking has never been an activity that we’ve shared, and we’d never spent so many hours in the kitchen together.  But we successfully bobbed and weaved our way through her tiny kitchen, finding ourselves clueless in the middle of making marshmallows, furiously spreading the quickly-cooling confection on a greasy cookie sheet, while strings of white sugar spun around us.  Halfway through our cooking extravaganza, when Maikael and my dad went out to run an errand, she paused and took out a bottle of Bailey’s from the pantry.  “You want some?” she asked.  I’d never had Bailey’s, but I found myself quickly accepting.  With the heavy, milky liquid swimming around the ice cubes, we silently clinked our glasses together and shared a quiet moment, pausing just for a moment in the eye of the storm.  Years from now, I’m not sure that I’ll remember what we made that night, but I think I’ll remember the sound the ice cubes made as they swirled around the glass.

Maikael and my dad, Senor Fogonero

On Christmas Eve we made our way over to Pilar’s house, where we were amongst the first guests to arrive.  Someone was trying – unsuccessfully – to get a fire started, and before he knew it, my dad was suckered into keeping the fire going all night.  He hopped up every so often to tend to the fire, poking gingerly at the simmering logs and politely declining the suggestions to use candles and canola oil to keep it going.  By the end of the night, he was officially known as Senor Fogonero, the man who shovels coal into a steam-powered locomotive.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember who was at that party, but I think I’ll remember that, for a brief moment in time, my dad was The King of the Fire.

Later that evening we made our way downstairs to Pilar’s driveway, where a Nativity scene draped in psychedelic flashing lights stood.  The party gathered in a semicircle around the manger, our coats gathered tightly around us, nimbly holding oversized candles.  Pilar’s granddaughters each held a side of a scarf, where baby Jesus was carefully placed between the two corners.  Then, they began gently rocking him as the group started singing Las Posadas. We didn’t know the words, but we peered at the lyrics over someone’s shoulder, humming along, the soft glow of the candlelight illuminating our faces.  Before he was placed in the manger, Pilar passed around the figurine of baby Jesus, and we each kissed him.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember the words to the song, but I think I’ll remember huddling in the cold and, for a fleeting moment, truly experiencing the spirit of the holidays.

Senora Claus

We went upstairs for dinner at 11 pm, a multicourse affair with a steaming terrine of potato leek soup, that famous salted cod dish, pork loin dusted with chile powder, pork loin baked with white wine and dried fruits, and a true buffet of desserts, from rum cake to German stolen.  We laughed and ate and talked, covering topics as diverse as bad jokes and the persistent drug problems that plague Mexico.  Just before dinner was served, Pilar’s granddaughter, Natalia, shimmied her way out of the bedroom in a Santa Claus sleeper.  “Senora Claus is here!” someone shouted, before Natalia ate a piece of grasshopper pie and promptly fell asleep on the couch, her red suit peeking out from underneath the blanket.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember everything we ate that night, but I think I’ll remember the feeling of being warmly brought into the fold as a foreigner on Christmas Eve.

Life is a series of moments.  And yet, these moments are alarmingly fleeting:  they are so easy to pass by that we often forget them before we even have a chance to remember.  It’s a bit like lucid dreaming, where we must train ourselves to memorize these moments while they’re happening, without trying so hard that we’re pulled out of the moment altogether.  This is a delicate balance, and our difficulty in achieving this balance might explain why we insist on treating life as a series of events, even when we know that it’s the moments that matter most:  the crash and bang of events is simply easier to inscribe on our memories than the whisper of moments.  But it’s those whispers that have the most to teach about better living a life in pencil: lessons about losing control, being quiet, having a small but special place in the world, shifting our focus away from “things,” and being made to feel a part of something.  Although the lessons are quiet, they resound louder than most events ever will.

What small, but special, moments will you hold near and dear to your heart from this holiday season?