That’s so much, Jesus! There’s so much meaning in Christmas here, and I’m so happy to be living it!

I appreciate your comment very much, as I appreciate all commentary. Conversations aren’t just important, they’re essential in everything we do!! Your take is one I’ll pay more attention to, but I do want to point out one thing. You wrote, “The non-Mexican nacional author had to move to Vallarta and didn’t live until after 4 years to understand that daily life isn’t a performance for visitors.” In my story, I write that this was my first Christmas in Puerto Vallarta, in 2021, and I’d been in the city for less than a year. My perspective was very different from what it is now. I’ve been here almost five years, and I’ve learned the language. I live in a perhaps a bit less than modest, local neighbourhood, and my way of life is far more local than tourist. Long gone are my eyes wide open on awe visitor days, and I’m now far more settled into daily life here. The story came from a place of being in a new country and spending my first Christmas without anything familiar. These things are familiar now, and I don’t romanticize them any longer. They’re simply part of my day-to-day. I hope that somehow adds a bit more context. But please know I am incredibly grateful for the time you took in your comment! Life’s about learning, and I’m the type of personality who takes on the lessons it hands me and does her best to grow from them. Thank you for handing me yours!!

Verdad, true!

What makes the aware was shocking isn’t the words or tons —it’s how late the author realizes it — as a neighbor made me read this asking “¿Que pedo con este, no captó? ¿Ocupa un regalo de Vallarta?”

Unfortunately the title frames the article immediately bordering on anthropological, like the author has just discovered a lost tribe and cataloging their behaviour not to understand but to bemuse and exploit for their own self realization not cultural awareness.

Vallarta isn’t gifting you the road to culture sensitivity and immersion, you’ve just not lived here merely relocated. It often takes foreigners 3-6 years, if they don’t repatriate before then, to arrive at this especially I’ve observed covid-era transplants.

What you’re describing isn’t discovery—it’s belated immersion.

This isn’t an obvious truth unless you’ve been taught it, which is the uncomfortable part.

No one explicitly teaches visitors, expats, gente de los cruceros, and yes chilangos or nacionales visiting — that Vallarta, despite marketed as a vacation fantasy, is also a fully functional place where people wake up, work, raise kids, argue with neighbors, bury parents, and worry about utility bills.

So when the realization hits—“Wait…this is just a city with people and friendly people focused not on top-down change the world via Instagram posts but change my community and support my family”—it lands as revelation instead of baseline knowledge.

Add to that northern Anglo-Saxon European cultures are observational, analytical based while Mediterranean and southern cultures tend to be situational and transactional based environment, and the shock is often self aggrandizing as enlightenment.

it’s not enlightenment though, that’s delayed awareness; and it produces a very specific kind of awareness here in Vallarta as this article archetypes –: self-important, generalized, and oddly comparative in a way that centers persons own cultures as the measuring stick.

Vallarta didn’t give YOU a gift, you finally OPENED your mind and heart to the community rather than simply “relocating” you’re finally “living” in Vallarta.

To the commenter saying Americans lack community or family: —>>> That take flips the same mistake in the opposite direction. Observing the U.S. from Mexico and declaring Americans don’t have community because it doesn’t look like Mexican community is still outsider projection. Family and social bonds in the U.S. exist—but they’re structured differently, often privatized, geographically spread out, and yes, sometimes mediated by capitalism. That doesn’t mean they’re absent; it means they’re less visible from the outside.

Reducing American social life to “football and Thanksgiving” is as incomplete as reducing Mexican life to fiestas and plazas. And calling Thanksgiving “corrupted” without acknowledging that every culture negotiates tradition under capitalism is moral shorthand, not analysis.

The irony: Both of you are describing cultures you haven’t fully lived inside. The non-Mexican nacional author had to move to Vallarta and didn’t live until after 4 years to understand that daily life isn’t a performance for visitors.

The presumptive nacional commenter would likely need to live elsewhere to understand how community persists even when it’s fragmented, suburbanized, or less public.

Different structures. Different histories. Same human need for belonging.

The mistake isn’t comparison—it’s thinking observation alone equals understanding.

I think ultimately (and yes I’m sorry I rambled here) a more appreciative title, “When I stopped relocating and starting living, thank you Vallarta for accepting and teaching me this lesson!” would’ve read in better and not made it seem so very cold despite the journey.

Hope this isn’t misinterpreted as crítica of your experience, your next stage is to fully immerse inlanguahe and society and I think you’ll realize how the tone here is very condescending despite you being appreciative and truly grateful. I believe perhaps that’s why the comment above also came from a starting position of negativity and defense.

So true.