The Story of Rosalita, part 2

The below tale is included in my upcoming book of Christmas Tales to be released this week. For part one, go here.



She remembered it as though it was yesterday. It was Christmas Eve, and she was 16 years old. Sipping her hot chocolate, she leaned against the doorway and watched her grandmother put the final touches on the Nacimiento, an elaborate nativity scene that took over her grandmother’s entire living room.

From floor to ceiling, every inch of the room had been transformed from plastic covered floral couches into a Mexican village celebrating Christmas. There were girls dancing in the street to guitarists, three different performances of pastorelas and a group of mountains topped with a large shepard family celebrating Christmas with their goats. Angels watched overhead from clouds creating with blanket batting as her grandmother put the final piece in the center of the coffee table. Every Christmas Eve, she waited until right before dinner to place the nativity holding baby Jesus in the center of the nacimiento.

“Why do you do this every year?” Rose asked, peeling a marshmallow stuck to her front teeth off with her tongue.

Her grandmother clucked her tongue. “Rosalita, it is tradition,” she scolded. “How can you turn your back on tradition?”

Rose sighed. “I’m not saying it’s bad, Aba,” she said, using her grandmother’s nickname. “I’m just saying its….big.” She eyed the scene in front of her. “Does it have to be this big? Couldn’t you put a crèche on the table and be done with it?”

“It’s tradition,” her grandmother repeated, sealing the discussion closed. “Besides, it must grow. Yours will be bigger than this.”

“What?” Rose stared at her.

“Yes, mija. As the family grows, the story must grow. This is our family’s history, their stories, and their creation. You must add your own story, yes?” Patting her granddaughter’s cheek, her grandmother slipped from the room. Rose eyed the nacimiento. Setting down her coffee cup, she leaned back to glance behind her. Her grandmother was in the kitchen, barking orders and preparing tamales. She glanced to the left. Her dad was asleep on the couch and her mother was trying to pry a raisin out of her little brother’s nose.

Rose stepped over the threshold and tiptoed through her grandmother’s creation. Bending down, she looked at all the tiny figurines, the intricate details of men leading donkeys and women carrying fruit baskets with avocados the size of a grain of salt. Her eyes trailed to a long adobe building with tiny guards standing at the doors no larger than her fingernail and she smiled. She had always loved the governor’s palace. Stepping over a lake of fishermen, Rose squatted on the floor and peeked inside.

Sure enough, he was there. Rose picked up the figurine and held it in her hand, peering down at the tiny face. Painted blue eyes stared up at her around black faded curls. His blue velvet coat had become worn over the years and his stubby legs had been chipped from years in hot attics. Since she was a little girl, this man had been her favorite. He wasn’t a governor, but he wasn’t a peasant either. Every year she asked her grandmother about him, but Aba always shrugged.

“Ask him who he is,” she would say, tending to another part of the nativity scene. “He’s never told me.”

Checking behind her, Rose shifted and placed the man back into the arm’s of the woman he had been dancing with at the governor’s Christmas ball. With the tip of her pinkie, she gave his black wooden curls a final caress.

“So tell me, mysterious stranger,” she whispered with a smile. “Who are you?”

The next thing she knew, she had her hand in a strange man’s hair. He looked down at her and chuckled, but his eyes were as wide as hers.

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends! Tomorrow we have a tour of the Pond in all it's Christmas whimsy, and Wednesday a new Twirl!