Rudolfo Anaya's The Farolitos of Christmas: With "Season of Renewal" and "A Child's Christmas in New Mexico, 1944."

Gr 4–6—Anaya opens this keepsake volume with the classic New Mexico Christmas story "The Farolitos of Christmas" (1987), the heartwarming story of a beloved holiday tradition of lighting the way of Christmas pilgrims and a young girl's hope for her father's safe return from the war. Córdova provides the colorful and warm new illustrations for this story. "Season of Renewal," Anaya's narrative of Christmastime in his native state, first appeared 30 years ago in the Los Angeles Times and recounts traditions that continue in New Mexico to this day, including the reenactments of revered Nativity stories Los Pastores and Las Posadas and family traditions of Misa del Gallo (Midnight Mass) and Mis Crismes (the phrase called out by children as they visit their neighbors to receive traditional gifts of candy, nuts, and fruit, much as trick-or-treaters do on Halloween). Finally, in "A Child's Christmas in New Mexico, 1944," Anaya presents readers with a poem in which he recalls his boyhood wonder and excitement at the Christmas family traditions, which are now bittersweet memories.