It's beginning to feel a lot like Xmas

At home in Canada, December used to feel like my busiest time ever. I was never an organized shopper, baker, decorator but I still felt the pressure to have my home, my gifts, my kids and my husband all ready for entertaining and participating in all the season has to offer. I hated missing anything and tried to build holiday traditions that would endure.

Moving to Mexico for the winter has greatly reduced that pressure. I now treat our Canadian Thanksgiving as our immediate family's Xmas and have had 2 years of everyone coming home for the "holidays". I have purchased small gifts to be opened in our absence by kids and their partners who cannot be with us on Xmas day. I don't decorate in Canada. I compose a Xmas email to friends and family...and smile and enjoy the peace that this place brings me.

That is not to say that there is no Xmas in Mexico. Here in Zihua, the Xmas season is building. We see the towers of merchandise in the Commercial Mexicana, our largest Costco affiliate grocery and retailer. We hear Xmas carols on the radio and see lights being strung everywhere. The giant green plastic Xmas tree is in the square and the Coca Cola tree is in the CM parking lot. Poinsettias (nochebuenas) are for sale everywhere, and we have put up our decorations carefully selected from the crafts available locally. So was it any wonder that we recently decided we needed to go shopping.

We wanted to show our friends Paul and Sue the wonders that are just inland from Zihua, so last Friday we headed to Patzcuaro and Quiroga. These 2 historic mountain cities are in Michoacan and together offer shoppers a selection of locally made merchandise not seen elsewhere at sometimes unbelievably good prices. Our friends Iris and Bob and Roger decided to join in and in Roger's 7 passenger van (we fondly refer to as the Shag wagon)...we drove for 3 1/2 hours to Patzcuaro. After enjoying our favorite lunch of Tarascan soup at El Patio, we headed out to the shops....and shop we did. Each of us found treasures of great charm ranging from lamps, to masks, to chairs. The next morning, we loaded in the van one more time and drove the 30 kms. to Quiroga,....my friends fondly called the "Winners" of Mexican handicrafts. Put it this way, in between mountains of junk, great treasures can be found. It was my kind of shopping - no malls, no Chinese imports, no hordes of other shoppers and no Xmas grinches to spoil the spirit.

We even treated ourselves to street food in Patzcuaro - accompanied by the local Mexican musical troop and happy customers who know the value of good, honest food and fun.
We are doing our very best to help the Mexican economy...we shopped till we dropped and came back to our little piece of tropical paradise a happy lot - fondly carrying our Xmas presents to ourselves.