FELIZ NAVIDAD

Our family on our grandfather’s side of the family comes from the Sierra Madre of the land of the Tarahuma People from the area of Guanaseve, Durango.
During the Mexican Revolution, nuestro abelo, due to the violence caused by the war decided to leave Mexico and go to the United States.
Christmas always brings the adventure stories that our family endured in traveling from the Sierra Madre to El Paso Texas. The decision to make this dangerous journey was filled with many dangers since there were roving bandits, revolutionaries and the Mexican Army and Mexico was in total disarray, able to only govern a small portion of that country.
My grandparents traveled hundreds of miles through the mountains with a burro and their three children, Tia Angelita, Tio Daniel and our Mother Rutila the youngest of the three.
As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I compare the Holy Family’s travel to Bethlehem in compliance to the Harold’s mandate to conduct a censes. The Bible states that “Mary was with Child” and they also traveled by burro and the dangers from lawless individuals also made their travel much more hazardous. Not encountering rooms, they settled with the Shepherds and there in a Manger, Jesus was born.
When my Grandparents left for El Paso, they had no money nor relatives that could help them in Texas, with God’s help, they overcame the many obstacles. Grandpa was hired as a field worker and eventually became the main foreman of the ranch.
Christmas should be a time of happiness, tamales and menudo with family and a visit to the church to give Jesus a “thank you” for his help in getting us through our daily lives. I like to say when someone greets me on “how are you doing” by responding, “good, it could be better but it can also be worse. One only needs to see the tragedies, like the great tornados bringing destruction and death to so many people. So, this Holy Season give thanks to the Lord, because we are truly blessed and let us spend more time involved with the True Spirit of Christmas.
Que Dios Les de Dinero, Salude, y tiempo para gozarlo! It has been a tremendous 15 months of tribulations and we have lost friends and relatives to the CuCuy. But even with all these personal loses we still have each other with the understanding that things are tough but thanks to God, they could be better.
Feliz Navidad, Vicente and Frances