Las Posadas and tamales: the nine-night tradition and how to feed it

Las Posadas tamales are the reason a lot of Mexican families in Texas do not sleep much between December 16 and Christmas Eve. Nine nights of walking, singing at doors, breaking a piñata, and then, finally, the pot comes off the stove. I grew up in that line with a plate in my hand, and I still cook for it every December.

The short answer: Las Posadas is a nine-night reenactment of Mary and Joseph looking for shelter, held from December 16 through December 24, with a different host each night. Every posada ends with food, and tamales are the traditional main dish because one pot feeds a whole procession. Plan two tamales per adult, one per child, and remember that the hosting rotates, so you only cook for your night.

If you have been asked to host a night for the first time, or your parish just put your name on the list, this is everything I wish someone had told my mother the first year she said yes: what the tradition means, how an evening runs, how many tamales you need, and when it makes sense to make them yourself, order them, or do both.

What Las Posadas is and why there are nine nights

“Posada” means inn or shelter. The tradition comes from colonial Mexico, where missionaries turned a December novena into something a whole village could act out: nine evenings of processions, one for each of the nine months Mary carried Jesus, the way most families explain it. Each night a group of “peregrinos,” pilgrims, walks through the neighborhood with candles, sometimes carrying figures of Mary and Joseph, sometimes with two children dressed as them.

They stop at a chosen house and sing the posada song. The people outside ask for shelter; the people inside sing back that there is no room. It goes on for several verses, with the crowd outside getting more insistent, until the innkeeper recognizes who is at the door and everyone floods in. Then there is prayer, sometimes a rosary, a piñata for the children, and food. The ninth night, on Christmas Eve, is the last posada, and in many families it runs straight into the late Mass and the Christmas Eve dinner.

In Dallas the tradition takes different shapes. Some parishes run all nine nights on church grounds. Some neighborhoods rotate house to house. Some families do a single big posada on a Saturday because nobody can do nine weeknights anymore. All of them end at a table, and there are always tamales on it.

Why Las Posadas tamales close every evening

Practical reasons first. A posada crowd is unpredictable; cousins bring friends, the choir stays, the neighbors hear singing and wander over. A pot of tamales feeds forty as easily as fifteen, it holds hot for hours in the steamer, and everyone can eat standing up with a paper plate in one hand and a cup of ponche in the other. Nothing else on a December menu does all of that.

Then the deeper reason. The tamal is the oldest festival food in Mexico, older than the posadas themselves, and it has always been a food you make for a crowd, together, in the days before a celebration. The wrapped husk is a small gift you open. Serving tamales at a posada says the same thing the song says: there is room, come in, we made enough.

Around the tamales you will usually find ponche navideño, the hot fruit punch with tejocotes, guava and cinnamon; champurrado or atole, thick warm corn drinks that go with masa like nothing else; buñuelos, the crisp fried dough with syrup; and aguinaldos, the little bags of candy and peanuts handed to the children after the piñata. If you have those four things and a pot of tamales, you have a posada. I wrote more about how the tamal fits the whole season in the Christmas tamales tradition in Texas.

How a posada night runs

1. Gathering, about 6 PM. Peregrinos meet a few doors down. Candles are lit, lyric sheets are handed out, because half the crowd only remembers the first verse.
2. The procession. Walking and singing, sometimes stopping at one or two houses that turn them away, until they reach the host home.
3. The song at the door. Outside asks, inside refuses, outside insists. When the door opens, everyone sings the entrance verse together.
4. Prayer. Often a rosary or a short reading, led by whoever the family trusts to keep it moving.
5. The piñata. Traditionally a star with seven points, one for each of the seven deadly sins, which the blindfolded child beats away with faith. In practice it is whatever the party store had.
6. Aguinaldos. Candy bags for the kids while the adults move toward the kitchen.
7. Food. Tamales out of the steamer, ponche from the pot, buñuelos on a platter. This part lasts longer than everything before it combined.

How many tamales for your posada night

Posadas skew young. There are always more children than you planned for, and children eat one tamal, sometimes half. Adults eat two, three if the walk was long and the ponche is strong. My rule for a posada: two per adult, one per child, then round up to the next dozen, because a host who runs out of tamales on a posada night hears about it until Easter.

Every dozen from my kitchen is $60 and that is $5 per tamal at any quantity. Split the order between pork in red salsa and chicken in green tomatillo salsa; the green is the one the children and the abuelas with delicate stomachs reach for, and the red is the one the uncles argue about. The menu page lists both.

Make them, order them, or both

The most traditional answer is a tamalada: the women of the family gather a day or two before the posada, spread the masa, fill and fold for hours, and gossip the whole time. It is one of the best days of the year and I would never talk anyone out of it. My guide to hosting a tamalada explains how to set up the assembly line and how long everything takes.

But be honest about the calendar. A tamalada for sixty people is a two-day job on top of a December already full of school programs and work parties. This is where families in Richardson and Plano usually land:

• Host one night, make everything. If you have four or five hands and a free Saturday, do it. Make the recipe your grandmother made and let the kids fold the ugly ones.
• Host one night, order the tamales, make the rest. The ponche, the buñuelos and the piñata are yours. The six dozen tamales come from my kitchen, hot, in the window you choose. Most first-time hosts do this and nobody at the door knows the difference, because I make them the way the women in my family taught me, from scratch, with the same chiles.
• Parish posadas. When a church hosts all nine nights, a committee usually orders by the dozen and volunteers handle drinks and cleanup. My bulk tamales by the dozen service exists for exactly this, and I explain how parishes plan it in catering church and community events.

Hosting a posada in DFW: timing and delivery

Posadas happen in the evening, and my kitchen delivers between 9 AM and 2 PM, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. That works better than it sounds. Tamales delivered at midday go straight into a big steamer pot on the lowest flame, or into a covered pan in a low oven, and they are hot and perfect when the procession reaches your door at seven. Nothing about a tamal minds waiting.

The one thing that does not wait is the calendar. The nine nights fall in the most crowded ten days of my year, the same week every family in north Dallas is ordering for Christmas Eve, and the earliest requests get the delivery windows they want. If your night is a Thursday or Sunday, when the kitchen is closed, I deliver the day before and you reheat; twenty minutes in the steamer and they are as good as the morning they were made. My advice on when to order Christmas tamales applies to every posada night too: book the week you get your date.

For the order itself, use the quote form on the holiday tamales page and tell me it is a posada, the night, the headcount with children counted separately, and the address. I price it myself, usually the same business day, and we agree on a window. Delivery covers Richardson, Plano, Frisco, Allen, McKinney and Dallas, and the pans come labeled by filling with salsas and crema on request. If you want to know whose recipes you are serving, the family story tells it.

Hosting one of the nine nights?

Tell me which night is yours, how many peregrinos you expect, and how many of them are children, and I will send a menu and a price the same day. Maggie’s has fed posadas from small living rooms to full parish halls, and the tamales arrive hot, wrapped and ready for the moment the door opens. Request a posada quote, then go find the lyric sheets.

Frequently asked questions

How many tamales do you need for a Las Posadas night?

Count adults and children separately: two tamales per adult, one per child, then round up to the next dozen. A posada of 40 people with about a third children needs around six dozen. Posadas attract extra guests, because singing carries down the street, so an extra dozen is cheap insurance. A dozen from my kitchen is $60 and leftovers reheat for breakfast on the next posada morning.

What food is traditionally served at Las Posadas?

Tamales are the main dish, served with red or green salsa. Around them you will find ponche navideño, a hot spiced fruit punch; champurrado or atole, the thick warm corn drinks; buñuelos, crisp fried dough with syrup; and aguinaldos, small bags of candy and peanuts for the children after the piñata. Families add their own dishes, but those five are the backbone of nearly every posada table.

What are the dates of Las Posadas?

Las Posadas runs nine consecutive nights from December 16 through December 24, ending on Christmas Eve. Each night traditionally has a different host home, though many parishes hold all nine on church grounds, and busy families often compress the tradition into one or two big posadas on a weekend. The nine nights are usually explained as the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy.

Can I order tamales for an evening posada if the kitchen closes at 2 PM?

Yes. I deliver hot between 9 AM and 2 PM, and tamales hold beautifully. Put the pans in a big steamer on the lowest flame, or covered in a low oven, and they are hot when the procession arrives at seven. If your night falls on a Thursday or Sunday, I deliver the day before, and twenty minutes in a steamer brings them back to fresh.

Should I order pork or chicken tamales for a posada?

Both, usually split evenly. Pork in red salsa is the richer, smokier one with a little kick, and the adults go for it first. Chicken in green tomatillo salsa is milder, and it is what the children and the grandmothers eat. Pans arrive labeled by filling, so guests pick without asking. If the crowd is mostly kids, tilt the order toward chicken.

How far ahead should I book tamales for a posada in Dallas?

As soon as you know your night. The nine nights of Las Posadas overlap with Christmas Eve orders, which is the busiest week of the year in my kitchen, and delivery windows fill in the order requests arrive. Two weeks of notice is comfortable; a month is better for a parish ordering ten dozen or more. Send the date and headcount through the quote form and I confirm the same business day.