  Christmas traditions often revolve around food. For the past few years Husband and I have made a tradition of enjoying cocktails with our neighbors before dinner on Christmas Eve. And each year, as we enjoyed our cocktails, we would see images of our other neighbors participating in their annual Tamale Making tradition. This year we were honored to view the Tamale Making festivities first hand.
For those of you unfamiliar with this tradition, it is a custom of many families of Mexican heritage to make Tamales during the Christmas season. It is easy to see why. Of course, the tamales taste great but that’s not necessarily the main draw. The tamale making brings the entire family together, to work on a common goal – the creation of amazing tamales. During tamale making everyone is together, in one room, talking, sharing, participating and having fun.
  As with many family traditions, every family makes the tamales differently, with different ingredients, techniques and styles. My neighbors prepare the meat, which for them is a mixture of beef and pork, the day before. They also prepare the masa mixture before the rest of the family arrives. That way, the task of tamale assembling and cooking can get started immediately once the large groups of family members arrive. To make the tamales, everyone gets an apron and stands around large bowls of meat and masa. Each person grabs a corn husk, smears some masa on the corn husk, drops some meat on the masa, adds an olive (or not depending on personal preference), and rolls up the corn husk to form the tamale, The tamales are placed in a steamer basket, which once full, will steam for about an hour to cook the tamales. The result is about 8 dozen tamales.
Of course, the process is not all work; wine, champagne, soda, chips, salsa and other goodies are enjoyed as is a lively discussion of what everyone is up to. Children home for the holidays catch up with relatives and families share their lives. The tamales are great but the fun and love my neighbor's family shared seemed a far more important aspect of this wonderful, family-centric, interactive cooking tradition.
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