A series of jubilant traditional holiday events dash through the December calendar in villages, towns and cities all across the Republic. Leading the pack is surely the year’s most heart-felt celebrations – the Friday, December 12 Feast of Guadalupe commemorating the 1531 anniversary of the appearance of Guadalupe, the Mother of Mexico on a mountaintop near Mexico City.
This celebration unfolds in most lakeside villages with nine days of processions studded with soaring skyrockets as local pilgrims head to morning and evening prayer services.
In Ajijic, the daily explosion of fireworks started up from a Sies Esquinas (Six Corners) vantage point announcing the December 4 through 12 novenario honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe, centered at the Templo de Guadalupe located in that western barrio of the village.
The same scenario is playing out in Chapala, San Antonio Tlayacapan, San Juan Cosalá, Jocotepec and every other town along Lake Chapala’s shoreline and around the nation, as the faithful manifest their fervent devotion to the nation’s spiritual patron. In many area barrios, neighbors go all out to arrange and decorate colorful street-side shrines honoring Guadalupe. These displays begin to appear in the early days of December with the best viewing time on December 11 and 12. In the villages of San Juan Cosalá and San Antonio, nearly every doorstep is decorated with lights, flowers, images and touches of Mexican art.
In Chapala the nine-day celebration is marked by the daily 7 a.m. Rosario and the 5 p.m. pilgrimages from the intersection of Zaragoza and Pepe Guizar (near Farmacia Guadalajara) to the Santuario de Guadalupe about five blocks to the north for evening mass. On Friday, December 12, skyrockets will awaken townspeople in time for Las Mañanitas at 6 a.m., which is followed by Mass at 7 a.m. Boats will leave the Chapala pier at 10 a.m. for the town’s traditional nautical pilgrimage to Isla de los Alacranes.
Chapala’s giant concluding procession departs from the San Francisco Parish church at 5 p.m. bound for the Guadalupe Temple across town in time for Mass at 6 p.m. This colorful late afternoon procession features an outpouring of love and devotion in the scenic floats, traditional dance troupes, brass bands, charro horsemen and their ladies, children in adorable costumes, mariachis and of course, coheteros armed with huge bundles of skyrockets to mark the progress of the pilgrims as they move through the village streets.
Ajijic’s Templo de Guadalupe, in the barrio of the same name just west of Seis Esquinas, is the pilgrimage destination point for daily pre-dawn rockets announcing the 6 a.m. Rosario and the 6:30 a.m. Mañanitas service. Noon is marked each day by a series of rockets leading to a daily 7:30 p.m. procession of townspeople repeating the Rosary and followed by the 8 p.m. solemn Mass.
The December 12 feast day of Guadalupe starts with the Mañanitas service moved to 5 a.m. followed by Mass at 6 a.m.. The noon Mass will be attended by neighborhood children receiving their first communion.
The bands, dancers in stylized costumes, floats and hundreds of walking townspeople and children step off from the Templo de Guadalupe at 4 p.m. headed for the center of Ajijic. The procession returns to the Seis Esquinas church in time for 6 and 8 p.m. Masses. Festivities continue into the wee hours, long after the grand finale skyrockets and the firing of the castillo fixed place fireworks display.