Olvera St. on Christmas Eve with my family was a cross- cultural treat. We ordered too many tamales and passed on the pan dulce. We watched the slightly abbreviated version of Las Posadas, as it was near drizzling, which in LA is not unlike a snowstorm. We felt brave and bracingly hip, bought belts with “City of Los Angeles” tooled into the leather. Mine has an especially scary belt buckle with two large REAL scorpions, the insects not the band, encased in Lucite on both sides. Every time I do my pants I feel like the Crocodile Hunter, or somebody mighty and Australian.
Right after the mariachi band and the procession of church kids all made up and looking beautiful in their Nativity costumes – I mean when was the last time you saw a shoddy King from Orient Are? – we went across the gazebo to the multiracial LA nativity scene, where the camels and cows and lambs are all off scale, being the same size, but there might have been a perspective that you could view it from where everything looked about right. It is semi-integrated too, with Latino and Black mannequins as the major players. There was no Asian presence, which I didn’t mind, because I don’t think I would have enjoyed hanging out in a manger. I wondered about the Orient Are thing for my entire childhood. Where is Orient Are? What kings? Why do they have such bizarre syntax?
We briefly stepped into a Midnight Mass, at the church next to the gazebo, and there were huge banners of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the heady smell of frankincense in the air. The priest wore a Santa hat and there was full on Santa sitting in the wings by the altar, ready to go. It was packed with people spilling out into the courtyard, where a number of altars lit up the wet sky.
The most striking sacred site, a little off to the side of the church, was a large hunk of rock, kind of like the urinal at the Madonna Inn, if you have ever seen it, or anything out of the Flintstones. At the very top of the rock pile, there was a figurine of the Infant of Prague. I love the Infant of Prague! I am not even kidding! Next to the display was a bulletin board filled with letters and photographs and mementos. Upon closer inspection, I found the letters were written exclusively in Spanish, and I didn’t understand what they said, but the meaning behind them was as clear as the star we are supposed to follow on that special night. There were numerous ultrasound pictures, a long braid of blonde hair, a wristband from a hospital. All these personal items, given as proof of miracles, either in gratitude, or hope for it in advance. It was joyful and haunting and sweetly sad, and even though that might not be what you believe in, or you don’t read the writing, you know that tacked up there with the clear plastic pushpins were worries and hopes and wishes and dreams that were being brought to the altar, to be flown like a paper airplane into the heart of God.
On the very top was a tiny photograph of a teenage boy, dressed head to toe in army fatigues. The photo and accompanying letter were recent, and again, transcended language and went straight to the interpreter of human compassion. The boy was so young, looking like he wasn’t even out of high school, but it was clear that he was. We stopped at that one, all of us, and made a silent wish to add to the multitude of wishes granted and to be granted. Maybe you can too right now. I hope that little boy, all in green with a helmet on, posing by the fireplace, happy and proud, this baby soldier, will come home soon.