Fun and Easy Christmas in Mexico lesson

Each year I like to learn about a different country for our Christmas Around the World.  This year we are learning about Christmas in Mexico.  It’s been on my to-do list for quite a while because Las Posadas intrigues me.

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Our Christmas in Mexico books

I’m going to say right now I royally messed up the traditional recipe for this.  So, if you want a faithful recreation, stop right now.  I didn’t have the ingredients to do that.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/8 cup sweet chokeberry juice (I used apple cider, see note below)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon anise (I don’t like anise, so I left this out)
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder (I think I accidentally added 1/2 teaspoon)
• 1 3/4 cup flour
• cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on afterward

1. Spend 20 minutes researching substitutions for chokeberries.  Find things that I’m even less likely to find, and just give it all up and decide to use apple cider, which I now have in excess because of a sale at Sam’s Club and buying 3 gallons last Monday.  Excuse me I need to go make a cup of hot apple cider.
2. Cream together sugar, butter, and cream.  Discover you don’t have the ONE EGG you need.  Frantically ask on Facebook what you can substitute for eggs when you don’t have applesauce or banana to sub in.  Get told 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise will work.  Do that, but make sure not to tell the kids because they won’t eat it if they know.
3. Add the apple cider (and yes my cup of hot cider tastes great, thanks for asking), salt, and vanilla.
4. Add flour and baking powder.
5. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 and discover that is TOO LONG.
6. Remember you were supposed to sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top after you discover the almost burned cookies.
7. Bake the next batch for 12 minutes and discover that is just right, and happily finish making the cookies.

Even if the recipe went all wrong, the cookies turned out great and the kids devoured them.  Then Princess took them to an American Heritage Girl party and came home with crumbs.

Biscochitos (Mexican Christmas Cookies)

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These Biscochitos are a great addition to any Christmas cookie exchange.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Total Time 27 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/8 cup sweet chokeberry juice (I used apple cider, see note below)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder (I
• 1 3/4 cup flour
• cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on afterward

Instructions

1. Preheat over to 400 degrees
2. Cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar.
3. Pour in the juice and mix into the creamed sugar mixture.
4. Add in the egg and mix thoroughly.
5. Add in the spices and baking powder. Then slowly mix in the flour until thoroughly incorporated.
6. Roll out the dough and cut it out into star shapes.
7. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the dough.
8. Bake for 12 minutes, remove from oven and cool.

Activity 2: Make a  Las Posadas statue set

In the Nine Days to Christmas book and in several of the videos we watched they carried a statue of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem on a donkey.  I decided to let the kids make some Mary and Joseph peg dolls using various fabric scraps, pipe cleaners, and what have you else that I dug up.

Now, we used hot glue guns and glue dots to apply everything, but my kids are 11 and 10 and not likely to burn themselves or stick glue dots in their hair.  Princess is rather paranoid about burning herself, so she opted for glue dots.

As we put together our Las Posadas statues, we listened to the Adventures in Odyssey episode about Las Posadas (this particular set is a Christmas-only one, I’m a sucker for their Christmas episodes) which always cracks me up.

All in all their creations reflected their personalities.

Princess’ looks like all of her other creations over the top eyes because she has discovered Beanie Boos (do your kids love them too?), and over the top complicated to put it all together.

Superman’s is quirky and unique because he opted for the assemble it out of a mini wooden pot and giant wooden beads.  This took a bit more work, however in the end it turned out rather cute.

Batman’s looks like zombies.  He was going for a realism effect and making them look sleep-deprived because that’s what he hears new parents feel like after reading Baby Blues comics for the past 6 months.

And mine are probably more traditional.  All in all, I like all of them.  They each have their own unique story to tell.

Las Posadas song, to finish off our Christmas in Mexico unit.

I mentioned we watched several Las Posadas videos.  That’s because none of them were super great, and it was a lot of home video type feel.  However, this particular one gave a great feel for the songs and back and forth you would hear between the people acting out Las Posadas.  Bonus points it’s in English for those of us Gringos who don’t speak good Spanish.

More learning related to Mexico

Let me see, I think I have some more posts on here related to Mexico. What else do I have?

• Diego Rivera Artist Study
• Frida Kahlo Artist Study
• Day of the Dead lesson
• North America Unit