Las Posadas and a tamalada with kids: a family guide

Las Posadas and the tamalada go together in many Mexican and Mexican American families at Christmas: on the nine nights before Christmas, neighbors walk in a procession retelling Mary and Joseph's search for shelter, and in the kitchen the whole family makes tamales together. Both are easy to share with small children. This guide explains each in kid-sized words, with jobs a three-year-old can actually do, a paper candle craft from a Los Angeles historical monument, coloring page ideas and books.

If you have a grandparent or tía who leads your family's tamalada, let them be the expert. Every family's recipe, songs and rules are a little different, and theirs are the ones that matter.

What Las Posadas is, for a small child

The clearest short description comes from El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, home of Olvera Street, in its Las Posadas at-home workshop: Las Posadas is the celebration and recreation of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem seeking shelter, or posada, for the birth of Jesus. The celebrations last the nine nights leading to Christmas and include music and a procession led by a child dressed as an angel carrying a candle.

The same page notes that the tradition began in the 16th century, combining Catholic and Aztec traditions to tell the Christmas story, that it is celebrated today in many countries, and that Olvera Street has hosted Las Posadas since it opened in 1930.

For a three- or four-year-old you can say: "Mary and Joseph needed a place to stay. For nine nights before Christmas, people walk together with candles and music to remember how they looked for a place to stay."

If your parish, school or neighborhood holds a posada, little kids can carry a battery candle and walk with the group. Ask the organizers whether there is a role for children. At Olvera Street, a child leads the way.

The tamalada: why tamales, and why together

Tamales are a holiday food with a very long history. The Library of Congress food blog explains that tamales are a Mesoamerican dish made with nixtamalized corn dough, masa, steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf with fillings like cheese, beans and meats, and that they have been part of Mesoamerican foodways since before Columbus. The same post describes the tamalada as a tamale-making party, a holiday tradition in many Latine households, and notes that families eat tamales at Christmas, New Year's, Day of the Dead, weddings, birthdays and baptisms.

Fillings and wrappers vary by family and region. LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, for example, teaches a red chile tamale class where students prepare masa and a filling and fold them in banana leaves, then take tamales home to share with family.

Jobs for little hands at a tamalada

A tamalada is an assembly line, which is perfect for kids: every job is small and repeatable. Set your youngest up at the end of the table with a towel underneath.

Age	Jobs that work
2 to 3	Separate soaked corn husks, pat them dry with a towel, drop finished tamales into a bowl, count them
3 to 5	Spread a thin layer of masa on the smooth side of a husk with the back of a spoon, add a small spoonful of filling, fold the bottom up
5 to 8	Fold and tie, stand tamales upright in the pot (cold pot only), keep a tally of each filling

A few practical rules that save the afternoon:

• Keep kids away from the steamer. An adult loads the hot pot. Small helpers stand tamales in it before it goes on the stove, or not at all.
• Give them their own bowl of masa. It will get eaten and squished. That is fine.
• Make one kid-designed tamal. Let them choose a filling, even a sweet one, and mark the husk with a tied strip so they can find it after steaming.
• Take photos of hands. Pictures of small hands spreading masa are the ones families keep, and they make great coloring pages later.

A Las Posadas candle craft

El Pueblo's free Las Posadas candle workshop uses only construction paper, glue, scissors, a pencil, markers and a ruler. In short: cut a 5 by 5 inch square of any color, decorate it, roll it into a tube and glue the edge. Then cut a small yellow square, shape it into a flame and glue it inside the top. The workshop suggests making several candles of different heights for an arrangement. Small kids can decorate while an adult rolls and glues.

A row of paper candles on the windowsill for the nine nights is a lovely countdown. Add one each evening.

Coloring page ideas for Las Posadas and the tamalada

Draw these yourself with a black marker, or trace them from your own photos:

• The procession. A line of people with candles, a child dressed as an angel at the front, Mary and Joseph behind.
• The door. A house with its door open and a family welcoming the walkers in.
• The tamale table. A long table with a bowl of masa, a stack of husks and every member of the family at work. Leave the faces simple so kids can add glasses, beards and braids to match their own people.
• One big tamal. A single husk filling the page, for toddlers.
• A nacimiento. If your family sets up a nacimiento, a small model Nativity scene, draw it with your favorite figure front and center.

If your posada ends with a piñata or a particular song, draw that too. The details your family recognizes are what make a page worth keeping.

Books about Las Posadas and tamales

• The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola: at the annual Las Posadas in old Santa Fe, the couple playing Mary and Joseph are delayed, and a mysterious couple seems perfect for the part.
• Las Posadas by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith: a photo book about Las Posadas in New Mexico, good for kids who like real pictures.
• Pedro, the Angel of Olvera Street by Leo Politi: El Pueblo notes the book was based on a real boy whose family worked on Olvera Street and who led the procession. Library record.
• Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto and Growing Up with Tamales by Gwendolyn Zepeda, both on the Library of Congress tamalada reading list. Zepeda's is bilingual (library record).

Keep the night on paper

A coloring page of your own family at the tamale table, with the abuela who runs it and the cousin who eats the masa, is a better keepsake than any printable. Our guide to turning a photo into a coloring page for free shows how to trace one. Colorkin can also make a page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked by a person, and we are making a tamalada coloring storybook of our own. It is not on sale yet.

The Christmas season continues after the posadas: our guide to Three Kings Day with kids picks up on January 6, and Dia de los Muertos coloring pages covers the fall. All of our heritage guides are in the family and heritage hub.

Questions parents ask