The heart of Navidad

When Maria Lyndoe was growing up in a poor family in Mexico, gift giving and receiving were not a part of her Christmas, but she looked forward to the holiday nevertheless. 

Her family lived in a tiny village about the size of Pringle where she lives today, in the state of Hildago which lies north and east of Mexico City near the Gulf of Mexico. Money was so tight that Lyndoe says her family considered it a blessing to just have meat on the table, and her toys were food cans from the kitchen. She imagined the new ears of corn in the field with their hairlike silks to be her dolls. 

So, an important part of Christmas for her was Christmas dinner. 

“Christmas was pretty simple,” said Lyndoe. “My mom would cook some food.” 

She says her mother would make tamales—a Christmas tradition throughout Mexico—and perhaps cook a chicken along with some Mexican-style bread. 

“We would have all the family together and have dinner together,” says Lyndoe, “And that was it. There were no presents involved.” 

Colored lights were not a part of Christmas either when Lyndoe was growing up. She says her family would go into the nearby jungle and cut down a tree—“not a pine tree”—and decorate it with natural ornaments. 

“It wasn’t really pretty but it was nice for us,” says Lyndoe. 

Climbing a tall tree, they would harvest a wavy, mosslike plant that grew in the trees and use it to decorate the Christmas tree. 

The hairy parasitic plant sometimes called “Spanish moss” is known as heno Navideño, which is Spanish for “Christmas Hay.” 

Lyndoe would also gather a fine moss called lama to use as a natural tree skirt underneath. In wealthier homes, Lyndoe says people will often place a nativity scene under the tree. 

A bigger celebration happened on Christmas Day at the Protestant church the family attended. 

Lyndoe says at church the congregation would gather for singing and everyone brought food for a potluck. 

A highlight of the church Christmas party for Lyndoe as a little girl was the breaking of homemade piñatas stuffed with candy, peanuts and cookies. 

Lyndoe, who for the last several years has operated the “Maria’s Mexican” food trailer next to the Custer VFW and two years ago started a restaurant by the same name in Hill City, says she didn’t really know what to expect when she was approaching her first American Christmas 16 years ago. 

One thing that stands out in her memory is being given her first Christmas present. 

“I never had that before,” says Lyndoe, who remembers thinking, “I get a present?”

She also remembers being amazed the first time she saw snow. 

“Everything was new for me here,” Lyndoe said. 

Perhaps in an effort to make up for something she missed out on as a child, Lyndoe says these days she enjoys decorating lighted Christmas trees in different colors—red, gold, blue—each year and has gotten into the gift giving tradition with her own family. 

But she says the most important thing about Christmas today is the same as it always was— being together as a family. 

“I think that’s the main thing,” she says. 

Lyndoe says she enjoys cooking a big meal and gathering with her husband Troy and other family and friends to celebrate the day together exchanging presents, playing games or just talking. 

 “Growing up I don’t think I missed the presents,” says Lyndoe who teaches her children Cinthia and Treyson to be happy with what they receive, believing that material things are not as important as the family being together. 

“It’s not about how much you give,” she says. “It’s not about how much I received. I think spending time with the family should be the most important thing.”  

This year, however, Lyndoe will get a first-hand reminder of the Christmases of her youth. She leaves Dec. 22 to spend Navidad in her native Mexico.