

Christmas Eve Dinner Workshop
Sunday, November 24th, 2019 from 14:00 to 19:00 (5 hours)
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Tuna fish "Vizcaína codfish" style
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Pork shank in Adobo
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Christmas Turkey filling
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Cheesecake and ponche
Christmas eve dinner is a Mexican traditional family feast. In it, the whole family gets together and enjoys a mouth-watering dinner right after the Christmas gift handover ceremony, where each family members present gifts to each other.
December 24th is the date where the last "Posada" party takes place, with the first one beginning on December 16th. It is traditional to break a "piñata" in each Posada.
A piñata is a figure, originally made with a clay pot covered with paper maché and painted or decorated with brightly-colored tissue paper. The pot is filled with candy and fruit or other goodies (sometimes small toys). The traditional shape for a piñata is a star with seven points, but now it's trendy to make piñatas that represent animals, superheroes, celebrities, or cartoon characters. At parties, a piñata is suspended from a rope; a child, often blind-folded and sometimes made to spin around several times before taking their turn, must then hit the piñata with a stick while an adult pulls on one end of the rope, making the suspended star move wildly about and thus making the game more challenging.
In its traditional shape, the seven points represent the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride) and the bright colors of the piñata symbolize the temptation to fall into these sins. The blindfold represents faith, and the stick is a virtue or the will to overcome sin. The candies and other goodies inside the piñata represent the riches of the kingdom of heaven that the virtuous who can overcome sin will receive. The whole exercise is meant to teach that with faith and virtue, one can overcome sin and earn all the rewards of heaven.
Children take turns hitting the piñata until it breaks and the candy falls out onto the ground, prompting everyone to rush to collect it.