Tis the Season...for TAMALES!!

This that time of year when the Christmas decorations go up and hardworking Mexican women brave prepare their kitchens for tamale making! So this was my first year in a very very long time making tamales, for the last three Christmas seasons I've been in Utah and previous to that....well I was a single gal and frankly spending very late nights spreading masa was not really on my agenda (I know bad girl)! In my family my oldest sister, Cata, has taken the lead and selflessly has helped preserve the traditions of our grandmothers. There is almost a whole day dedicated to just making the meat and chile and to preparing the masa for spreading! We then have to soak corn husks so that they are soft and pliable. After all that people are so anxious to eat tamales that we are willing to stay up to wee hours of the morning spreading masa on the husks, so my sister can add the meat, close them up and put them in the tamale pot (huge huge pot that fits like 13 dozen tamales!). It's really like a two to three night event and the first night your so excited for the tamales that sleep is just not an option...LOL!! By the next night you can probably only hang till about midnight and since my sister works that just about takes up her whole weekend so then we extend it to the following weekend. Its like a love love hate relationship for the tamale preparer. You love love the wonderful memories they prompt of your grandmother of simpler days of Christmas and family time. However, it is so labor intensive a tinge of hate creeps in as you spread and spread and spread that masa on each and every odd shaped corn husk, they never seem to end. But then the love comes back as you smell them and then get to taste the first tamale, like having a baby maybe, you just forget and enjoy!
The last two nights Jose and I helped make tamales and boy were we pooped and all we did was spread masa, imagine how the preparer feels, my mom and my sister...what would we all do without them?!

Thank you for keeping tradition, thank you for teaching it, I promise I will preserve it and pass it down to my children! I will sign off now and I'm off to eat Chocolate Abuelita and a tamalito!!