Women would skillfully create figurines with blue toasted maíz and maguey honey. The ceremony was not without another sacred ingredient: ma í z. Festivities began December 21, when the sun “dies” or stops moving to celebrate the sun’s re-emergence or “birth” on December 24. Rituals were drawn out throughout the month of December, but the major celebrations that marked the holiday spawned over the course of four days and was called Panquetzaliztli. The devotion to Huichilobos, as the Spaniards called him, came to an apex during winter solstice. In exchange, Huitzilopochtli was hungry for human sacrifice. This god provided equilibrium to their world, and being in good graces with him ensured rainfall, harvest and triumph in battle. Huitzilopochtli, known as “blue hummingbird to the left,” god of sun and war, was among the most crucial to their livelihood. The Aztec people, who reigned over five to six million people and up to 500 small states, were ruled as a civilization by the fealty to their gods and went to great lengths to please them. But a few surviving dishes prove an umbilical connection to our roots and ancestry. These dishes, along with Christmas tradition, forged with indigenous and Catholic influences, have been an evolution over time-and a prime example of colonialism. Steaming tamales, chiles rellenos, atole, roasted pork loin, pozole, bacalao, ponche, romeritos: These are the usual suspects that make up the rich, aromatic landscape typical of a Mexican Christmas Eve dinner.