A New Mexico Christmas Story

I remember the lilting guitar music accompanied by strong voices singing carols and alabados (Spanish hymns preserved by the Penitente brotherhood of northern New Mexico). Having been somewhat bored with the Swedish-meatball-dominated holiday cuisine of my childhood, I was enchanted by the bounty laid out before us: vats of posole, pots of red chile, and tamales that looked like little holiday gifts wrapped in corn husks. I took my first taste of bizcochitos, flaky from lard, scented with anise and cinnamon, and served with steaming cider. The welcome for our entire entourage was as warm as the night was chilly.

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My friend Lenore Tapia, whose family goes back generations in northern New Mexico, was a high schooler when she invited me to be a part of Las Posadas. She still remembers her own joy and wonder at the tradition. “That was such a special time for recognizing the real meaning of Christmas, with our church parish and other friends and family,” she says. “And that food. While we eat some of those dishes during the year, they seem at their best and most magical when shared at the holidays.”

A few nights later, I took a ramble up Canyon Road to see it aglow in the soft flickering light of thousands of farolitos (the paper-bag lanterns that folks in southern New Mexico call luminarias). The annual stroll led to another feast in a different home, where warming piñon fires blazed with their enchanting scent. Those back-to-back encounters convinced me that there was no place more special for Christmas anywhere in the world.

The unique holiday experiences kept coming, as I observed the local blending of traditional Native and Christian beliefs. Christmas Eve at ancient Taos Pueblo filled me with awe, with its towering ocote (local pine) bonfires, the shooting of rifles, and the sacred procession between San Geronimo church and the plaza, led by dancers and a statue of the Virgin Mary. Here, the singing was in Tiwa, Spanish, and English. Another year, I spent Christmas Day at Acoma Pueblo’s Sky City, high on a mesa top where the elaborate dances filled the San Esteban del Rey Mission Church. Afterward, my family and I were invited into the Suazo home, where an endless line of acquaintances, new and old, savored matriarch “Tweety” Suazo’s posole and prune pies in shifts at the dining room table.

Eventually, New Mexico Magazine asked me to write about Santa Fe’s Delgado family: former mayor Larry; his wife, Angie; and their children, Cynthia and David, and their spouses. Their holiday celebration includes whipping up hundreds of pork tamales together, along with vats of posole and chile con queso and scores of bizcochitos. I loved the family camaraderie involved in the preparation of these dishes and vowed to myself that I would start a similar tradition. My stepdaughter, Heather; her husband, JB; and my grandchildren, Riley, Bronwyn, and Chloe, now help me carry on our family’s legacy of holiday foods.

Cynthia reminisces about her mom “watching the grocery ads for when pork would go on sale, then gathering us to make the traditional foods, including my dad grinding all of the corn for the tamale masa.” The Delgado tamalada was the first time I had experienced the home grinding of nixtamalized corn (treated with the mineral lime and hulled to form a dough) for fresh masa. Soon I went out and bought the same kind of hand grinder from Sears that Larry had used that day so I could make a similar version of tamales. Later, the family held an open house filled with friends and family before heading off to midnight Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.

After striking up a friendship with the Jaramillo family, who founded the legendary Rancho de Chimayó, I spent multiple Christmas Eves at the sprawling hacienda turned restaurant. Tumbleweed snowmen shared the broad front lawn with nativity scenes and ristras too numerous to count decked the halls and walls. The shepherd’s fireplace—an adobe structure large enough to allow someone guarding the flock to sleep atop it—enchanted me. The menu always did too, including the succulent carne adovada and the famous tequila-laced apple-cider cocktails. I reveled in all of it, and I still re-create versions of these dishes.

In 1990, I was honored by the opportunity to write the Rancho de Chimayó Cookbook with my late husband, Bill. Nearly 20 more cookbooks followed, and most have the foods of this region at their heart. I’m often told that it’s not just the recipes, but the stories we’ve told in these books—of the people and cultures of New Mexico—that readers value most. These continuing traditions remain my own personal inspiration.

Every state in the country lays claim to special December holiday traditions, but I believe none can hold an Advent or Hanukkah candle to New Mexico’s. And what graces our tables at this time of year, the rich and storied food that we share with family and friends, is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

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