PHOENIX (By Angela Cara Pancrazio, Arizona Republic) December 19, 2006 — Don't try to eat a holiday tamale without removing the husk.

This warning sounds ridiculous in Arizona, where tamales at Christmas have become as ubiquitous as corned beef on St. Patrick's Day.

But decades ago, a sombrero-clad President Gerald Ford - remember him? - attempted to gobble up a tamale, cornhusk and all, during a stump stop in front of the Alamo.

A message to the tens of thousands of souls who moved to the state in recent years from parts unfamiliar with the Hispanic traditions that signify December in Arizona: Don't let that mistake be your mistake.

This is the time of year when Arizonans, Hispanic or not, weave tamales, luminarios, Our Lady of Guadalupe, mariachi music, and even tin ornaments and piñatas into their celebrations.

For F. Arturo Rosales, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without tamales.

He remembers eating his mother's tamales until he felt that he'd burst. They were big and red, with a lot of meat. "They always had an olive. If you didn't have an olive, you felt robbed," said Rosales, now a history professor at Arizona State University.

Rosales said many of the Mexican-American traditions that we associate with the holidays here aren't necessarily a big deal in Mexico. Things such as eating menudo and tamales and decorating yards with luminarios.

"There are vestiges we make a big deal over," he said. "Here, there's more discussion about the meaning of menudo. In Mexico, it's just one of a thousand things that they have to eat. The same is true about tamales.

"Making tamales has become a cultural event for us because we have the choice of making ham," Rosales said.

The Christmas Eve family tradition of making dozens of tamales at Ernestine Redondo Carter's house has spilled over to her sister-in-law, Sherry Kidder.

"She's always been around to make and eat the tamales. She's not Hispanic. She makes them by herself now. There's a big purple ring on her glass-top stove from making tamales," Redondo Carter said.

It is the desire for community that Redondo believes has contributed to the widespread acceptance of Hispanic traditions in the past decade.

"The interest in and engaging in some of these Hispanic traditions is this yearning for something deeper - that's a perception I have."

That is the very reason artist Keylagh Maxwell was drawn to the image of the Our Lady of Guadalupe, a spiritual symbol for many Mexicans and Latin Americans. The feast of Our Lady is celebrated on Dec. 12.

Surprises and presents are attached to Santa Claus while a deeper symbolism is associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe, Maxwell said. "The Virgin is hope and healing."

It was nearly 30 years ago that the staff at the Desert Botanical Garden came up with the idea of lighting the garden pathways with luminarios, which are small paper bags that house a lit candle. The event was meant as a way to thank their volunteers and the public for another year.

"At the time, luminarios were not that popular," recalled Wendy Hodgson a senior research botanist at the garden. The staff wanted a theme with a people-earth connection, she said.

"In collecting medicinal plants, the Indians of Mexico would go out with a small light and collect certain plants at night when they would flower," she said.

Their humble method of lighting mimicked the 16th-century Spanish tradition of the bonfires that led the way to midnight Mass on the last night of Las Posadas, which celebrates the biblical story of Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay.

European missionaries introduced Catholicism to the indigenous people of Mexico in the 1500s, spawning Las Posadas processions that re-enact Mary and Joseph's trek through Bethlehem.

You can easily find Valley events that resemble this Mexican celebration, along with several other adopted traditions.

luminarios decorate Lisa Johnson's north Scottsdale neighborhood every year.

"The luminario tradition transcends all people, nationalities and faith," Johnson said. "I have Jewish friends that enjoy the traditions of Mexico."