{"id":81130,"date":"2025-12-09T01:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T01:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/81130\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T01:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T01:34:08","slug":"what-makes-christmas-special-in-el-pasos-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/81130\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes Christmas Special In El Paso&#8217;s Traditions?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of cool things going on in and around El Paso every Christmas but there are a few that the season just wouldn&#8217;t be the same without. Here&#8217;s my top 3 &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s actually 1 extra one that gets on my list, even though 1) I don&#8217;t like them and 2), they&#8217;re not limited to Christmas alone. Yep, tamales.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously, the story of how The Grinch stole Christmas would have ended very differently had that green goofball highjacked the 915&#8217;s tamale stash. There would have been &#8220;no spirit of forgiveness, let&#8217;s sing carols and celebrate anyway&#8221; stuff going on.<\/p>\n<p>A posse would have been formed like in the old west to search the Franklin Mountains for him, a lynch mob would have found a suitable tree and had a noose tied and ready to go. Cindy Lou Who herself would have pulled the lever.<\/p>\n<p>Swift, frontier justice &#8230; don&#8217;t you dare doubt me. I don&#8217;t know why they get so much more important at Christmas but El Pasoans take those yuletide tamales seriously.<\/p>\n<p>El Paso&#8217;s Big 3 Christmas Traditions<\/p>\n<p>That really depends on who you ask but, as for myself, the things I look forward to the most &#8230; after the time spent with friends and family &#8230; would have to be these:<\/p>\n<p>The luminarias along Scenic Drive. That beautiful drive and view get so much better accompanied by their soft glow. Although, I&#8217;m glad I don&#8217;t have to set them all up. Just getting them along the edge of my roof last year drove me nuts.<a href=\"https:\/\/klaq.com\/el-paso-winterfest-tips-dos-donts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WinterFest<\/a> &#8211; Seeing San Jacinto Plaza all lit up and watching the opening night festivities during the parade of lights is always a very cool sign that &#8217;tis the season.Hopping on my &#8220;one, (iron), horse open sleigh for a chilly cruise through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.todoelpaso.com\/eastridge-lights-2025-the-original-el-paso-holiday-drive-thru\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">East Ridge<\/a> and and seeing all the lights.A Visit To The Missions<\/p>\n<p>This one&#8217;s a bonus, after all, we can&#8217;t overlook &#8220;The Reason For The Season&#8221; as they say. Right? There is nowhere better to really feel the moment than the missions in the lower valley, especially the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/klaq.com\/the-ysleta-mission-texas-oldest-honors-a-special-saint\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">oldest mission in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/klaq.com\/el-paso-missions-video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Video Of El Paso&#8217;s Missions<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Visiting one of them, especially if you can catch a midnight mass on Christmas Eve, really brings it all together.<\/p>\n<p> 10 Things You&#8217;ll Only See During a Texas Christmas<\/p>\n<p>\u00a010 Things You&#8217;ll Only See During a Texas Christmas<\/p>\n<p class=\"photogallery-credit\">Gallery Credit: Piggie , Canva<\/p>\n<p>See One Of The World&#8217;s Holiest Places &#8211; Sanutario De Chimayo In New Mexico<\/p>\n<p class=\"photogallery-credit\">Gallery Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/klaq.com\/author\/ggarza\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dubba G<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are a lot of cool things going on in and around El Paso every Christmas but there&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1907,138,140,139,6033,143,1631],"class_list":["post-81130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-audio-videos-photos","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-humor","tag-local-el-paso","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}