My husband’s extended family had a 30-year tradition of going to Mexico for Christmas break. (2010 was the first year that no one went.) When my husband was younger, they used to drive from Chicago to San Carlos, which is 6 hours south of Tuscon, with 8 kids.
My husband and I have been together for almost 10 years (we’re coming up on our 8th anniversary), and I have participated in this tradition 3 times: in 2002, 2004, and 2007. I hope we can continue this tradition with our kids sometime in the future, but for the time being we feel it’s not safe to continue.
I wanted to record what I experienced the few times I went, in case we are never able to go again. :(
So, what do we do when we go to Mexico? Not a whole lot. But that’s the beauty of it, really. We camp on the beach, relax, and celebrate Christmas rather simply.
The weather is nice. (It’s usually about 80 degrees during the day, but at night it drops into the 40s.)
Swimming – The first year I went I was really adventurous. After setting up camp and eating dinner, we went for a night swim in the freezing water because the bioluminescent algae made it too hard to resist. (Basically the water glowed all around you as you moved and swam that night.) It’s definitely worth Googling.
It was too cold to swim the other years. Even for my husband, who loves the water, skipped out one year. But sometimes the water is plenty warm.
We also did a lot of playing on the beach;
going to town to take a shower, eat yummy food (hot churros, tacos, hotdogs, quesadillas, and yummy pastries), and shopping for Mexican handicrafts at the Guaymas market;
telling stories around the campfire;
going to the nearby sand dunes;
and performing camp duties (including but not limited to: building the port-a-potty, gathering firewood/cactus, cooking and cleaning up after meals, etc).
Christmas Day
On Christmas Day we would always take donated goods (clothes, school supplies, building supplies, and toys) to the neighboring fishing village. We always did a pinata for the kids and would play some soccer with the village boys and men.
One year when I was sorting through the clothes a found this J-LO tank that read, “now everyone can be sexy.”
On Christmas Day in 2004, we were cleaning up breakfast when about 25 Federales with machine guns started running around our camp (which was in a dried up ravine, and not to far from a really old airstrip). They were looking (probably to avail) for a downed drug running plane.
Christmas dinner- A turkey, cooked by Grandpa Poulsen, in a stone-lined pit, with everyone else bringing a dish to pass.
Nativity and a family pinata:
Let us not forget that Christmas is also Jord’s b-day. This was a awesome b-day cobbler I made him one year.
And finally, here’s a look at our little camp from further down the beach:
