Bring Some Mexican Flavor to Your Christmas

Do you come up with a new Christmas decor idea every year? We usually put out the same decorations each year, adding to them over time, but sometimes I feel like mixing things up a bit and will try to put a new spin on our holiday decor.

If you want to add a bit of Mexican flavor to your home this season, but you can’t jump on a plane to do your shopping, below I’m sharing the decorations and traditions we love year after year, with links to similar items you can have delivered.

Full disclosure: I haven’t bought anything I link below online. I’m sharing the closest matches I could find to what we have.

Decorations With Mexican Flair

At our house in Oaxaca, the tree is mostly Oaxacan ornaments mixed with some silk flowers. We add one or two to the collection each year from the shops in the Historic Center. These include barro negro with colorful ribbons, painted gourds, and pressed and painted tin decorations. Last year we bought some molinillos and other kitchen tools painted like alebrijes. These or the pressed tin would ship easily. They don’t weigh too much and they aren’t particularly breakable.

The best alebrijes come from named makers. Jacobo and María Ángeles have a workshop, which is also their home, in San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca. Their work has been displayed in New York and they have a gallery in the center of Oaxaca that is worth stepping into when you’re there. Their pieces are high end, high quality and quite expensive, but they also train younger artists and promote their work as well. Most online listings won’t name the maker, but if they do know that you’re probably looking at a higher end piece.

For the alebrije ornaments, the closest match I found on Etsy is a shop called laflorhuasteca. It sells mini alebrije ornaments at $12 each, three for $36, ten for $118. The listing says they’re handcrafted and hand painted in Oaxaca. The shop is in Pilot Point, Texas, so there’s no customs duties to worry about. There are no returns, and the seller says what you get may not match the photos.

On Amazon, NOVICA sells artisan products from all over the world, including Mexico. These fish alebrijes would make an adorable addition to your tree, and since they’re shipping through Amazon you don’t need to worry about things getting stuck in customs.

For the pressed tin ornaments, there are several options available. These in particular are very similar to some that we have both in Oaxaca and on our tree in Mexico City.

Another item with particularly Mexican flavor we get out every year is a ceramic nativity set we bought at a small shop in Mexico City the year we got married. The closest matches I could find on Etsy are this colorful version, or this pink one. If you’re buying on Etsy, make sure you check to see where the seller is located, since sometimes international shipping is costly, and depending on how the seller ships, you may be responsible for duties on the importation.

Ideas for Hosting

One year we put a small tin ornament at each place setting for Christmas dinner with the family. It was a favor, a decoration and a place card all at once. We bought ours in the shops around the center of Oaxaca, but I found these available on Etsy that are very similar. Or, if you’re a Frida Kahlo fan, you might like this selection of hearts from Amazon.

We buy hot chocolate, a molinillo and clay cups at the market in Oaxaca, and when there’s time we make our own chocolate at the molino (the machine used to grind up cacao, sugar, cinnamon, almonds and pecans into a thick paste, and also the same one used to grind corn into masa). The closest match I found on Amazon is a gift set from Verve Culture with Villa Real Oaxacan chocolate, a small molinillo and clay mugs. It would make a lovely host or hostess gift, or be a unique twist on traditional hot chocolate for your holiday events.

There is a specific technique to using the molinillo to make the chocolate frothy. You hold the handle between your palms and rub them back and forth (as though you were cold), making the molinillo spin and froth the chocolate. It’s harder than it looks! My husband is the official maker of hot chocolate in our house because I don’t get it to froth very well. If you’re in the same boat and don’t have a Oaxacan at home to do it for you, here is the trick: put the hot chocolate in the blender and blend it on high for a few seconds right before serving. It also froths better if you make it with milk, though Mexican hot chocolate can be made with either milk or water.

A word on the cups. The FDA says some traditional pottery can leach lead into food and drink, and washing doesn’t remove it. That goes for any handmade ceramic. In Oaxaca we don’t cook in artisan ceramic, as a rule. Always ask the sellers whether the cups are made for drinking, and how they know. Don’t rely on a “lead free” label alone.

If You Want to Spice Up Your Table

Every family has someone who came back from Mexico and won’t stop talking about what they ate. Or maybe you’re just looking for something different to put on the table this holiday season. If that’s you, these cookbooks may give you some ideas.

I own the paperback of Diana Kennedy’s The Essential Cuisines of Mexico. Her books are easy to find in the US and in English. She is probably the most well known cookbook author in English for Mexican cuisine, and I bought this book shortly after moving here when I really wanted to understand how to cook with the local ingredients.

Nowadays, my husband does the Mexican cooking at our house and his copy of Identidad Zapoteca is the most authentic Mexican cookbook we have. It is in Spanish but if that is not an impediment and you’re curious, I found it available online at Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York. It focuses on traditional Oaxacan cooking. Expect this book to have ingredients and techniques you might not be familiar with!

Disclosure: some links on this page are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no cost to you. I only link what I’d be comfortable giving.

Have you brought a piece of Mexico home for the holidays? I’d love to hear what it was.