“Thank you, God, for letting me have another day,” says Amarante Cordova at the opening of the film The Milagro Beanfield War.  I say these same words every day because it is so good to wake up each morning in Northern New Mexico.  I am a transplant from Illinois who has sunk roots into the Abiquiu soil right alongside my born-here neighbors, who welcomed me and made room for me.  I want to live and die in the Land of Enchantment.  My friends and neighbors share my awe about our state.  We are indeed conscious of just how lucky and blessed we are to breathe such clear air as we gaze at our steadfast mountains and brilliant skies.
 
Blessings descend in various guises and from many sources.  Sometimes when I am just too overcome to try to explain my blessings adequately, someone else expresses the same point of view.  That itself is a blessing.
 
There is no hesitancy here to bless everything in sight.  At El Rancho de las Golondrinas, the outdoor living history museum five miles southwest of Santa Fe, a priest says three separate blessings before the annual Harvest Mass the first Sunday of each October.  Attendees assemble on top of the hill overlooking this vast agricultural site to accompany the carved bulto of San Isidro Labrador, his oxen and angels, to its regular place in the chapel in the Golodrinas Placita at the bottom of the hill.  This statue spent the summer in the Oratorio de Isidro, the morada on this height, so that Isidro, venerated saint of farmers, could oversee and bless this enterprise’s crops, workers, and volunteers.  As the procession wends its way down the hill, a stop is made next to a large field so that the priest can bless the many crops grown that summer.  The next stop is on the bridge over an acequia where the priest blesses the water that nourishes crops, animals, and their care-takers.  The third stop is at a corral of farm animals, some of which are led out to be blessed by the priest.  Interestingly, one year a reluctant mule quickly calmed down when blessed.
 
Also blessed, beside my home and its horno (see previous Abiquiu Anecdotes), are the new Abiquiu clinic building and a bridge over a creek—because all of these items are perceived as blessings to the community.  I have heard of acequias being blessed when cleaned out in the Spring before their gates are opened to let the precious water flow into dry fields.  In Albuquerque, hot-air balloon pilots are known to ask the morning sun to bless their balloons with its warmth.
 
May all my friends and neighbors in Abiquiu be blessed in this holy season of blessings.
 
Hilda M. Joy
 
December 18, 2018

As told to Hilda Joy by the late Velma Jaramillo Clevelle several years ago.
 
Every December 16, my siblings—brother Ben and sisters Teresa and Eppie—begin our Advent Novena.  By doing so, we carry on the tradition handed down to us by our parents, Ben and Rose Jaramillo.
 
During the nine days before Christmas, we take turns cooking and baking for each other as we host joyous dinners in our homes for each other and our families.  Everyone in the family has a food specialty that the others look forward to during this holy season.
 
After dinner, we kneel together and pray, in Spanish, the Advent Novena prayers taught us by our parents—the Novena de El Santo Niño de Atocha.  There is a slight variance from day to day.
 
As these prayers were in my father’s prayer book, I one day decided to take apart the pages and then reproduced them for all as I felt that the actual words as we remember seeing them would be more meaningful to family members than mere copies.

Image:  Pepe, Credit Brooks Coe Shea

Abiquiu got to be a better place when Diana Coe moved here from Colorado.  She quickly became an integral part of our community and was loved by all.
 
Among Diana’s horses and donkeys was Pepe, a miniature donkey whose forebears originated on the Island of Sicily, off the coast of Italy.  This breed of donkeys is known for its gentle disposition and for having a cross on the back of the animals.  Pepe certainly was gentle and often gave rides to children on his cross-marked back at community events to which Diana took him and donated his services.  “Pepe is a celebrity,” Diana would boast as she fondly scratched him behind the ears.
 
Pepe immediately came to mind when fellow mayordomo Ray Trujillo and I learned that we were in charge of the annual Christmas posadas that started out each year in Abiquiu’s church, Santo Tomas el Apostol.  We learned of our responsibility from our pastor, Father Joseph Vigil, just a few days before the first posadas, and the very first thing we did was to call on Diana, who happened to be home, to ask if we could have Pepe carry the young girl, who would portray the Blessed Mother in the procession before Mass.  Diana thought it was fitting that this breed with the cross on its back would carry Mary, and she said, “Yes.”
 
Our second step was to recruit young parishioner Christina Crim to portray Mary and to ask her to ask a fellow student to portray St. Joseph to accompany her during the procession.  She did, but he was a no-show, so Christina’s mother Erma pressed into service another young man, Matteo Garcia, who asked, “Do I have any speaking lines?”
 
The third step was to call a number of people and to ask them to bring food for the after-Mass potluck in the gym, which we quickly set up with tables covered with green cloth and red ribbon and pots of poinsettias that someone had donated to the church.
 
Father was so thrilled when he learned that we would have a live donkey carry Mary that he asked us to have the procession go throughout the church plaza before evening Mass.  The night of the first posadas, however, turned brutally cold with a strong bitter wind sweeping across the plaza.  Father Joseph said that he did not want anyone to get ill and directed us to walk only a few feet from the library across from church.
 
Diana parked Pepe’s trailer there, and, when he emerged from it, we could tell that he realized that something special was about to happen.  He stood patiently and proudly as he awaited his passenger.

When Christina got close to Pepe, she became frightened, saying, “I don’t do donkeys.”  Her dad Allen stood on one side, and on the other side Ray picked her up and set her on Pepe, who immediately made Christina feel so much at ease that with a smile she said, “I can do this.”  With silent St. Joseph at her side and with Diana leading and Ray following, the group processed to the front door of our church.
 
Inside, the church was dark, lit only by the altar candles.  St. Joseph knocked on the door, and the choir outside sang the traditional request for a room in the inn.  Pepe cocked his head and looked at the choir and listened.
 
Then the congregation inside sang its traditional denial.  When Pepe heard the singing inside, he lunged toward the church door as if he wanted to enter.
 
The choir outside and the congregation inside repeated the request/denial verses about a half-dozen times, and Pepe paid attention to each group, again lunging toward the door each time he heard the singing inside.
 
Finally, the innkeeper opened the door, the congregation changed its tune to one of warm welcome, and the church lights and the Christmas-tree lights were turned on.
 
Pepe immediately felt that he needed to be a part of this celebration and charged into church and headed toward the main aisle with Diana holding Pepe on one side and Ray securing Christina on the other side of the happy animal who then fell into a dignified gait as he headed to the front pew.  Surprised congregants were saying, “Look. . .that is a real live donkey!”  Father Joseph and I were the last to enter, and I said to him, “Father, this was not planned,” and he replied with a laugh: “It’s okay.  It’s wonderful.”
 
And it was.  Amen.
 
Another time, Diana brought Pepe to our parish’s annual Fiesta de Santa Rosa de Lima, which occurs every August, so that Pepe could provide rides for delighted children.
 
Thank you, Pepe.  Thank you, Diana.  May you rest in peace with our heavenly Father.
 
Hilda M. Joy
April 2016

​Posadas Afterword:   My first Christmas season in Abiquiu, I attended my first posadas in Canones with Agustin and Merlinda Garcia and with Alfonso and Ninfa Martinez.  It was a very cold, clear dark night, and the stars were enormous.  After the church service, we were welcomed to a dinner of posole, which really took off the chill, and other posadas delights in the gaily decorated church hall.
 
On the way home, Agustin asked, "So, Hilda, what did you think of your first posadas?"  I replied that I thought it was all wonderful except for one thing---NO LIVE BURRO!  He said they were hard to find, and I said that if ever I were responsible for a posadas, I would find one.  In Pepe, I did.