Las Pasadas

Las Posadas

North central region of New MexicoUnder the glow of colored lights strung in Plaza trees, several hundred spectators cradled candles Sunday as they watched an annual re-enactment of a story on which the Christian faith is founded.

The re-enactment diverges in a few details from the account told in the Christian Bible. Costumed devils play the role of mortals who, in the biblical account, refused lodging to a young pregnant woman and her fiancé. As the couple stroll around the Plaza, they stopped on each street of the square to seek lodging. The crowd booed devils who ridiculed, taunted and spat upon the Holy Family from perches on Plaza portals.

The devil's supernatural power allows him to magically appear at each of the Plaza "inns" where the couple stopped to find shelter. It takes four mortals to simulate those powers , crawling out of second-floor windows to discourage the travelers.

Although Las Posadas celebrations are common in Northern New Mexico towns and deeply rooted in Spanish Catholic tradition, it was a neighborhood campaign against development in the early 1970s that sparked what he said was for a while a largely secular celebration of Las Posadas in Santa Fe. That celebration eventually outgrew San Antonio Street where it started, and grew into the annual event now celebrated on the Plaza.