The Holidays

We arrived in late December which is dos semanas de fiestas/two weeks of holidays.  Christmas and New Year's Eve are typically private family events in the Latino culture, but keep in mind we are in an ex-pat village. What does this mean? We are surrounded by retired Americans and Canadians here to escape the winter months back home, and their visiting family members.  The local economy must strike while the iron is hot, or perfectly temperate like the weather here!

Restaurants and many shops remain open on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day,  New Year's Eve (of course), and New Year's Day.  Snowbirds enjoy the shopping, eating, and partying provided by the vendors this time of year. 

That brings me to a brief commentary on the population of our town.  Old.  People are old.  All of the Mexicans we meet cannot believe how young we are and that we are here.  I get it.  Your money goes further here on daily living expenses, medical care, and the weather is a constant spring.  The area provides plenty of entertainment and getting to other towns on safe, cheap, public transportation is easy.  Who wouldn't want to retire here? But it has gotten to the point that Jon and my presence here is almost comical.  The Mexicans and the Ex-Pats don't know what to make of us.  We keep telling them, "Why wait until retirement to experience the good life?"


Every other Christmas, Jon and I do not have our children.  Having just the two of us, is not out of the ordinary.  We pigged out on cured meats and cheeses, drank too much wine, watched Christmas movies, grabbed Margaritas on the malecon (boardwalk), and watched the sunset over the lake and mountains from our rooftop patio. 

We did discover a Mexican tradition that we will bring back home with us to our children. On Christmas Eve, children write their notes to Santa and attach them to star balloons filled with helium.  They let them go into the night sky, and Santa knows to grab these special stars as he flies by in his sleigh.  Beautiful.

New Year's Eve...  Let's start with the great part.  We have gotten to know Juan.  He was our server at a breakfast diner on our first morning in Ajijic.  He let us know that he works Sundays at Sunrise Café, but during the week he is at Gossips.  As it turns out Gossips is a local favorite, and Juan has become a good friend.  I made NY's Eve reservations and we ate like Kings.  Oysters Rockefeller, Duck, Gourmet Mac and Cheese, and fresh margaritas.  The owner advised us to head over to El Bar Co for live music that will go all night long, and to be amongst the younger crowd.  We should have known something was amiss when Juan preferred to clean the restaurant rather than join us at El Bar Co.

 If any of you have seen my New Year's Eve photos on Facebook, I have to come clean - that was a Facebook Fake.  We took our fun selfies because we got dressed up and needed to immortalize the moment.  But if we were truly taking accurate photos, they would have captured the awkward looks on our faces as we assessed the crowd at El Bar Co.  A mix of ages and life stages that can only be characterized as inappropriate.  There is no way to politely describe men in the retirement portion of their life hitting on women in their 20's.  Or women of a certain age wearing outfits that really shouldn't be worn by women of any age.  Ay Dios Mio! We drank half our drinks and left hysterically laughing before the live music even began.

As we walked home, our knight in shining armor, Juan pulled up in his car and asked if we needed a ride.  We laughed about the twilight zone-esque dynamic, and made arrangements to hang out with Juan and his girlfriend certain that we will have a much better time.

 

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality,

and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson