Christmas in Mexico: Traditions, Las Posadas, Nochebuena and Where to Celebrate

Christmas in Mexico: what to expect

Christmas in Mexico runs on a longer clock than in the United States. The season starts in mid-December, its biggest night is the 24th rather than the 25th, and the gift-giving finale arrives in January. If you plan a December trip expecting one big day, you'll miss most of it.

Plan for the weeks instead.

Most of what happens is religious in origin and family-centered in practice. Most Mexicans are Catholic, and the calendar follows the church: a feast for the Virgin of Guadalupe, a novena of posadas, a Mass on Christmas Eve, the Epiphany. Layered on top are street markets, city light displays, office parties and, increasingly, Santa Claus and Christmas trees.

For a visitor, that mix is good news. The public side (lights, markets, plaza nativity scenes, posadas in the street) is open to anyone, and the food is everywhere. The private side, the family dinner on the 24th, is where you're a guest if someone invites you.

Christmas in Mexico: a season of song, food and family, not a single day

Ask people about Xmas in Mexico and most will describe a feeling before a date: weeks of gatherings, songs at the door and food that only appears in December. Christmas songs in Mexico are villancicos, carols sung at posadas and at church, alongside Spanish versions of the American standards you'll hear in every mall.

Some Mexicans call the stretch from December 12 to January 6 the Guadalupe-Reyes marathon, a joke about how many parties fit into it. The name tells you what matters: the season, and who you spend it with.

How Mexicans celebrate Christmas: family, church and the street

How do Mexicans celebrate Christmas? In three places at once. At home, families set up a nacimiento, a nativity scene, and plan the Christmas Eve meal, often cooking for days. At church, the novena of posadas and the late Mass on the 24th mark the religious calendar.

In the street, neighborhoods and parishes run posadas, markets sell piñatas and decorations, and cities hang lights over their main squares. Offices and schools hold their own posadas too, so in mid-December a single person might attend several.

How Christmas is celebrated in Mexico, from Guadalupe to Candelaria

So how is Christmas celebrated in Mexico from start to finish? The short version runs like this. December 12 honors the Virgin of Guadalupe. From December 16 to 24, Las Posadas re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for shelter. On the 24th, Nochebuena brings the last posada, a late Mass and a family feast, with presents often opened at midnight.

Then December 28, Día de los Santos Inocentes, is a day of pranks. January 6, Día de Reyes, brings gifts and the rosca de reyes, and February 2, Candelaria, closes the season with tamales. Each of those is covered below.

Las Posadas: the nine nights before Christmas

Las Posadas is the tradition most visitors have heard of and few have seen. The word posada means inn or lodging, and the posadas are nine nights of processions and parties, held from December 16 to December 24, that re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay in Bethlehem.

The nine nights are often explained as the nine months of Mary's pregnancy. For many Catholic families they are also a novena, nine days of prayer that end on Christmas Eve.

When did Las Posadas start? The tradition came with Spanish missionaries in the colonial period, who used it to teach the Christmas story, and it took the place of older December celebrations. It spread across Mexico and into Central America and the American Southwest, and today it's kept alive by parishes, neighborhoods and families.

Las Posadas in Mexico: what the nine nights commemorate

What is Las Posadas, in practice? Each night, a procession sets out after dark, often from a church. Children or young people dress as Mary and Joseph (sometimes Mary rides a donkey), and the rest follow with candles, lanterns or sparklers.

The procession stops at a house and sings the request for shelter. The people inside sing back a refusal, verse by verse, until the pilgrims are recognized and let in. Then the prayers end and the party starts: ponche, tamales, sweets and, for the children, the piñata. Guests often leave with a small bag of candy and fruit, the aguinaldo.

Las Posadas in Mexico range from solemn parish events to loud street parties, and the same neighborhood may have both.

Christmas pinata in Mexico: the seven-point piñata and the blindfold

The Christmas piñata in Mexico is a star with seven points, traditionally a clay pot covered in paper and tassels. The points are usually explained as the seven deadly sins, the pot as temptation, and the stick as faith that breaks it open to release the treats inside.

Children take turns blindfolded while everyone sings and shouts directions. Markets in December sell piñatas in every size, and paper star lanterns in the same shape hang over streets and patios.

How a posada night unfolds, and how visitors can join

Most posadas are neighborhood or family events, so the easiest way in is a public one. Many churches, town plazas and cultural centers hold open posadas, and hotels and language schools sometimes organize them for guests. Ask at your hotel or the local tourist office in early December.

If you're invited to a private posada, bring something to share, such as sweets or a bottle for the ponche, and join the singing even if you only manage the chorus.

Christmas traditions in Mexico beyond the big nights

Christmas traditions in Mexico go well beyond the posadas and Christmas Eve. Several of them are easy for a visitor to catch, because they happen in public: plays in theaters and plazas, carols in churches, and markets selling the season's food and decorations.

Mexico Christmas traditions: pastorelas, villancicos and aguinaldos

Pastorelas are shepherds' plays, telling how the shepherds traveled to see the newborn Jesus while the Devil tried to stop them. They began as a teaching tool in the colonial period and have become comedies, full of improvised jokes and local satire, until the Archangel Michael wins in the end. Theaters and community groups stage them through December.

Villancicos, the traditional carols, are sung at posadas and in church. Aguinaldos are the small gifts of candy and fruit handed out at the end of a posada, and the same word is used for the year-end bonus Mexican workers receive.

These customs vary by region. In Oaxaca, for example, the feast of the state's patron, the Virgin of Solitude, falls on December 18 with processions of its own.

What Mexican Christmas is called: Navidad, Nochebuena and the Guadalupe-Reyes marathon

Christmas in Mexico is called Navidad, and Merry Christmas is Feliz Navidad. Christmas Eve is Nochebuena, which literally means the good night. The informal name for the whole season, the Guadalupe-Reyes marathon, runs from the Guadalupe feast on December 12 to Día de Reyes on January 6.

You'll also hear Feliz Nochebuena on the 24th, and Felices fiestas as an all-purpose holiday greeting.

Nochebuena: Christmas Eve dinner and midnight Mass

Nochebuena is the heart of the season. The last posada is held early on December 24, and late that night many families go to the Misa de Gallo, the Mass of the Rooster, named for the legend that a rooster announced the birth of Jesus.

After Mass comes the feast, often eaten close to midnight, and in many homes the presents are opened at the stroke of twelve.

For a traveler, the Misa de Gallo is the most accessible part of the night. Churches are open to all and fill early; arrive well before the start if you want a seat, dress modestly and stay quiet during the service.

Nochebuena meaning: the good night of December 24

What is Nochebuena? The name means the good night, and it refers to the night Jesus was born. It's the family night of the year: relatives travel home, the table is set for a crowd, and the evening runs late.

The same word names the poinsettia. In Mexico the plant is called flor de nochebuena, the Christmas Eve flower, and you'll see it on every doorstep and church altar in December.

Christmas Eve in Mexico: why the 24th matters more than the 25th

Why does Mexico celebrate Christmas on the 24th? Because the Catholic tradition counts the celebration of the birth from the night before, and Mexico kept that rhythm: the Mass, the feast and often the gifts all happen on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve in Mexico therefore ends very late, and December 25 is a slow day of rest, church and leftovers. If you're traveling, plan the 24th as the big night and keep the 25th easy.

Mexican Christmas food: what is on the table

Mexican Christmas food changes from region to region and family to family, but a handful of dishes turn up across the country. Most are eaten on Nochebuena, some at the posadas, and a few only in January.

What do Mexicans eat for Christmas? Tamales, above all. Families often make them together in huge batches, a gathering called a tamalada, and eat them at posadas and on the 24th.

The Christmas Eve table is the richest of the year. Common main dishes include bacalao, salt cod stewed with tomatoes, olives and capers in the Spanish style; romeritos, a wild green cooked in mole and served with potatoes and dried shrimp; roast turkey or pork leg; and pozole, a hominy soup that feeds a crowd.

There's usually a Christmas Eve salad too, the ensalada de Nochebuena, with beets, fruit and nuts. Dessert is buñuelos, thin fried dough with cinnamon sugar or piloncillo syrup.

To drink, there's ponche, a hot punch of seasonal fruit such as tejocotes and guava, sweetened with piloncillo and spiced with cinnamon (adults often add a splash of rum), plus atole and champurrado, warm corn-based drinks. Rompope, a Mexican eggnog, appears in stores in December.

The easiest way to taste the season as a visitor is in markets and at street stalls in December, where tamales, buñuelos and ponche are sold by the cup and the piece. Hotel restaurants also serve Christmas Eve dinners, so if you want one, compare hotels for Christmas week and book early.

The Christmas season calendar, December 12 to February 2

When does Mexico celebrate Christmas? Over about seven weeks. The season runs from December 12 to January 6, with one last celebration on February 2, and the dates below are fixed each year.

Only December 25 and January 1 are statutory days off, so most shops and services keep working through the rest of the season. December 12 is a bank holiday, so plan cash around it, and expect slower service and heavier traffic in the last week of December.

December 28, Día de los Santos Inocentes, is Mexico's version of April Fools' Day, so don't believe everything you read in the paper that morning.

On January 6, Día de Reyes, children receive gifts from the Three Kings, and families share a rosca de reyes, a ring of sweet bread with small figures of the baby Jesus baked inside. Whoever finds a figure in their slice owes the group tamales on February 2, Candelaria, when families take their Child Jesus figure to church to be blessed.

Christmas decorations in Mexico: nacimientos, poinsettias and lights

The most important of the Christmas decorations in Mexico is the nacimiento, the nativity scene. Families set it up in mid-December and keep it until February 2. The figure of the baby Jesus goes in on the night of the 24th, and the Three Kings are added on the night of January 5, ready for Día de Reyes.

Mexican nativity scenes can be huge and wonderfully crowded, with moss, rivers, villages, market sellers, women making tortillas and the occasional devil lurking in a corner. Churches, plazas, hotels and restaurants put up their own, and walking from one to the next is a pleasant December evening.

Do Mexicans decorate Christmas trees? Yes, more and more, and in many homes the tree now stands next to the nacimiento rather than replacing it. Poinsettias, which are native to Mexico, fill doorways and altars, and cities hang lights and illuminated figures over their main squares.

If you want to bring decorations home, December markets sell all of these, and buying from the artisans who make them is the best souvenir of the season.

Where to spend Christmas in Mexico

Where to spend Christmas in Mexico depends on the Christmas you want. For the full season in a big city, go to Mexico City. For tradition and one of the country's most unusual Christmas events, go to Oaxaca. For a small colonial town lit for the holidays, go to San Miguel de Allende. For sun with some celebration, go to the Caribbean coast.

Christmas in Mexico City is the easiest to plan. The main squares fill with lights and nativity scenes, and the pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe around December 12 draws enormous crowds of pilgrims. Book well ahead for the second half of December, when flights and rooms are in high demand; our Mexico airports guide compares the ways in.

If you want to stay central, you can book a hotel on Mexico City's Insurgentes avenue close to the Christmas lights.

In Oaxaca City, December 23 brings Noche de Rábanos, the Night of the Radishes, a contest of scenes carved from oversized radishes that has run as a formal competition since 1897. The displays last only a few hours before the radishes wilt, and the lines can be very long, so arrive early. Our Oaxaca City guide covers the rest of the trip.

San Miguel de Allende suits travelers who want posadas on cobbled streets and a festive old town without a big city.

On the Caribbean coast, Christmas in Cancun means warm days and resort dinners, with posadas and nativity scenes in the downtown parishes. If a beach Christmas sounds right, seasonal all-inclusive offers and hotels in Cancun's hotel zone both fill early.

Wherever you go, December is dry season across much of the country; see our guide to the best time to visit Mexico for regional weather. For moving between cities over the holidays, our guide to getting around Mexico has the options, and our currency guide explains why to carry pesos for markets and posadas. Crowds are part of the season, so keep an eye on your belongings at night events (see whether Mexico is safe to visit).

Final Thoughts

Christmas in Mexico rewards travelers who arrive early and stay through the 24th. Come in time for at least a few posadas between December 16 and 24, eat tamales and buñuelos at the markets, and treat Nochebuena, not the 25th, as the main event. Choose your base by the Christmas you want: Mexico City for scale, Oaxaca for tradition and the radish night, San Miguel de Allende for a lit-up small town, the Caribbean coast for sun. And if you can, stay for Día de Reyes on January 6, when the rosca comes out and the season has one more party left in it. Book flights and rooms well ahead, carry some pesos, and say yes if anyone invites you to a posada.

FAQ: Christmas in Mexico

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