Mexico’s celebration of Christmas begins in earnest on Tuesday, December 16, when the the first traditional posada takes to the streets in towns and villages across the country.

A growing number of expatriate residents are mystified and miffed at being subjected to a sudden shift in the way they were accustomed to doing banking business here. Many are feeling hassled because certain south-of-the-border financial establishments that are now refusing to handle U.S. dollar checks.

With major changes in Mexican law that began in 2012 and 2013, people coming from outside Mexico to work here are finding it necessary to do more advance planning than in the past.

The place: the huge terrace of a hotel in Guadalajara’s Providencia neighborhood.

Nothing plucks at the heartstrings of Tapatíos (Guadalajara dwellers) like the annual ritual of the pitaya — that short and splendid season when the delicate fruit with the drab exterior and blindingly brilliant if gooey interior is plucked from the stenocereus gummosus cactus in rural areas south of the big city and rushed to be sold in the picturesque Nueve Esquinas area or by vendors who ply city streets bellowing “Pitaya!” and carrying the tennis-ball-sized globes nestled in large baskets in layers of purple-flowered alfalfa greens.