Carmen Robles smiles as she surveys the four generations of her family assembled in her La Floresta garage on a recent Sunday afternoon. Conversation and laughter accompany the flying hands around the long worktables as her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and sister measure treats into plastic bags. Little children play nearby and an eight-day-old great-granddaughter sleeps in her mother’s arms.
Enormous bags of peanuts, animal crackers and candy – over 1,000 pounds of treats – edge one side of the drive, while mountains of completed bolos (give-away bags) grow on the other.
Robles nods approvingly at the scene. “It is such a relief each year when I know I have the things we need to make the bolos,” she says. “I’ll be even happier when we finish enough bolos to give to each of the 3,000 people who will be here on the nine nights before Christmas.”
Attendance at the Robles’ posadas in the La Floresta garden is down by about half from a decade ago when it was common for 750 or more to stream through the garden gate on each of the nights between December 16 and 24. Even with “only” 350 pilgrims expected each night this year, expats visiting for the first time will be stunned by the sight. By sunset farolitos (paper lanterns) illuminate the garden. Trucks, cars and vans clog the street and back up traffic for blocks as drivers search for parking spaces to unload the passengers jammed into every inch of the vehicle’s space. These are the area’s oldest, poorest, youngest and most in need, many from villages up to 20 miles away.
They are there to pray and honor the season with Carmen and her husband Octavio, but some are surely thinking of the fat plastic bag of peanuts, cookies and candy they will receive at the end of the evening. Others are working to earn early admittance to the Christmas give-away that is part of the Christmas Eve posada.
All year Robles collects used clothing from friends, neighbors and area consignment shops. The past few years her annual stockpile has mushroomed in early December when the members of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church donate the left-over clothing from the church’s annual Regalorama bazaar. Posada attendees line up around the block on December 24 for the time they are allotted to peruse and select a few items from the towering piles of used clothes, sheets, towels and blankets.
The pilgrims who attend eight or nine of the evening events have first choice of the gifts Robles has assembled with the help of donations, a bit of corporate assistance and her own year-round savings. Most years she is able to purchase several dozen blankets, over 100 despensas (food baskets), and some mops and brooms. A Guadalajara carpet company saves remnants all year to be given to these poor area families.
The woman who quietly pulls off this gargantuan project year after year is overcome with emotion when she holds the more than 125-year-old Christ Child figure that belonged to her great-grandparents.
“This is an old-fashioned posada to honor the birth of the Holy Child,” she explains. “We used to carry candles and sing as we walked from house to house searching for the inn. It’s not safe to do that now, but our posadas still remind us of the Christmas story. We still say the Rosary and sing the old villancicos (carols), and pray for the precious Child and for each other.
“After my great-grandparents died, my grandparents hosted the posadas, and when they were gone, my aunt Maria Becera Macias kept the tradition alive for so many years. She lived a very long time. When she could no longer walk, she gave this Child to me, and also gave me the tradition to continue. We started having the parties here in La Floresta when she came to live with us in the 1980s.
Octavio Robles seems to enjoy his wife’s labor of love as he quietly keeps tabs on the details, administering the lighting, sound system and crowd with his two sons. The Robles’ daughter, Carmen, teases her mother by telling her that the tradition has become too much work to continue, and then insists that the whole family come to help.
“We need our whole family and our friends to get everything done. We especially need Pancho Montes Paz and the Paz family from San Antonio,” says Octavio Robles. “Every year Pancho makes a special trip to the Abastos (wholesale market in Guadalajara) with the Super Lake truck just to buy everything for us. He even buys the balls for the children and the rice and beans for the despensas. And he delivers it and unloads it right here where we need it.”
“That’s not all Pancho does,” adds Carmen Robles. “He never charges us one centavo more than it costs to buy all these things. He won’t even take anything for the truck, the gasoline or the workers’ time. Then, he is patient, if he has to be, until I can pay for all of it.
“I wish we could afford to do it all ourselves, but the parties have grown so large, we depend on the help of many others … You know, when we have it all ready, it seems like so much. Then when we’re giving it away, there’s just never enough.”
Octavio and Carmen Robles invite readers to come to their home at Paseo de la Pesca 63 in lower La Floresta before 6:30 p.m. on any night between December 16 and 24. It’s not too late to donate clothing, bedding or cash gifts to purchase more blankets. Call (376) 766-0045 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.