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Last updateFri, 02 Jan 2015 5pm

Laguna Chapalac – December 20, 2014

LCS Singles

The LCS Singles is sponsoring their 3rd Annual Holiday Bash on Sunday, December 21, from 3-7 p.m. in the Lake Chapala Society (LCS) back patio and gazebo area.

Salvador’s will be catering the event with a full holiday meal, including ham, turkey, dressing, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, rolls and desserts. Live music will be provided for dancing pleasure by Ricardo and Blanca.

Tickets for this festive event are 200 pesos in advance, available only at LCS through Saturday, December 20, until 2 p.m. Tickets at the door will cost 240 pesos.

Charity Bazaar

Fauna Silvestre Mexico, the local wildlife rescue league, is hosting a giant pre-Christmas charity bazaar on Sunday, December 21,  from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Flora Exotica, across from Centro Laguna Mall.

In addition to the treasures and used items being sold (no reasonable offer refused) by a variety of charities participating in the event, customers will have the opportunity to meet Whiskers the chinchilla and hug Flamita, the corn snake, two of the hundreds of animals that have been rescued and nursed back to health by Fauna Silvestre Mexico.

LCS Learning Seminars

Rick Rhoda will chair the learning seminar for Lake Chapala Society (LCS) members on Tuesday, December 23, noon in the LCS sala. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s podcast, “Religion, Evolution, and the Ecstasy of Self-transcendence,” will be featured at the session. In his talk Haidt investigates why people search for spiritualism and self-transcendence, and have a sense of escaping from everyday life while feeling at one with the universe. Haidt looks to evolution, and asks why some types of human groups survive while others do not.

Laughter Yoga

Gita Fendelman, a certified Laughter Yoga leader, has confirmed that the local group will not meet on Wednesday, December 24 or Tuesday, December 31. Laughter Yoga meetings will resume on Tuesday, January 7. For more information about this group call Fendelman at (376) 766-5879 or (33) 3846-4265, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Holiday Cards and Closings

Greeting cards created in the LCS Children’s Art Program are available in the LCS office and on Mondays and Tuesdays in the Patio Café from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. This annual tradition helps support the art program which is so important to the area’s children.

The LCS will be closed for the holidays on December 24, 25, and December 31 and January 1.

Baseball Trip

The last regular season bus trip co-sponsored by the LCS and Restaurant Santo Coyote will see the Charros de Jalisco baseball team face the Venados de Mazatlan on Sunday, December 28, noon. The bus will leave from the sculpture in La Floresta at 10 a.m.

Tickets at 250 pesos for members and 275 for non-members must be purchased in the LCS office in advance of the game. The ticket cost includes transportation to Guadalajara and VIP seating.

Trivia Fun

More brain teasing, lively fun Trivia Quiz sessions sponsored by Niños Incapacitados are in the works at the Hotel Real de Chapala. Tickets are still available for the quiz on Tuesday, January 13, 2 p.m. To reserve tickets, contact Dawn McInnis at (376) 766-3408; email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.programaninos.com.

Black and White Gala

The date for the traditional Black and White Gala to raise funds for the School for Special Children has been set for Thursday, February 19. The swing music of the big bands of the 1940s is the theme chosen for the elegant dinner dance at Villa Encantada in Chapala.

Tickets for individuals will be sold for $600 pesos at Diane Pearl Colecciones or Mia’s Boutique in Ajijic. Groups of eight can reserve a table by contacting event coordinator Claudette Champagne at (376) 766-1033 or emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Chapala Directory

The deadline for changes, corrections, or additions for the 2015 Chapala Directory residential listings and yellow pages is rapidly approaching. Residential listings for this 15th edition include name, telephone, or cell phone number. Including an email address is optional.

Businesses can have a free yellow pages listing that includes the categorized name, address and telephone number. Additional lines can be added to the yellow pages for a small fee. The dimensions of this year’s 15th annual edition have been increased so that ads can more easily be imported from  8.5” x 11” publications. The regional map section has been completely updated and other information such as metric conversion charts are being included.  

Residential and yellow page information should be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or reported by telephone at (376) 762-0403 during the 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. business hours.

Best of the Best

The Best of the Best, People’s Choice Awards Survey voting is now in the final days with voting ending at midnight on Wednesday, December 31. All area households can continue to cast one electronic vote daily (determined by IP addresses) to help support the area’s most deserving business people at bestoflakechapala.com/skyline-poll-top. The finalists are urged to fully utilize social networking to gain votes. Results will be published at the bestof lakechapala.com website  in January.  

Lakeside Presbyterian

In his fourth Advent sermon at 10 a.m. on Sunday, December 20, “Fulfilling the Promise,” Pastor Ross Arnold explores how, long before the baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem, for generations God had told the Jewish people exactly what to expect. In very precise terms, God repeatedly spoke through the prophets to promise redemption and a return to fellowship with Him. The details about how it would happen matched up with the reality when Jesus was born.

The worship service of the Lakeside Presbyterian church is followed by refreshments in the garden. The church is on the mountain side of the Carretera in Riberas del Pilar, beside S&S Auto. Watch for the sign “You have family at Lakeside!”

The Lakeside Presbyterian Church will hold a special Christmas Eve service in the new church in Riberas on Wednesday, December 24, 1 p.m. The event will feature Christmas carols, a children’s pageant by the kids from La Ola, special music and celebrations, plus tours of the new building.

St. Andrew’s Anglican

“Me, A Mother of God?” asks Fr. Winston Welty’s sermon on Sunday, December 20, the last Sunday before Christmas at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. This message suggests that the angel’s announcement to Mary may be an announcement to us as well.  

The Sunday worship service will begin with the lighting of the Advent Wreath at 10 a.m.  The children’s bilingual Sunday School is at 9:45 a.m. A coffee hour  in the garden follows the worship service.

A service of choir anthems and congregational caroling begins at 6:15 p.m on Christmas Eve, Wednesday, December 24. The Christmas Feastal Eucharist and Welty’s sermon, “The Danger of Christmas Getting,” begins at 7 p.m. At the conclusion of the service the congregation will share fellowship at the traditional Christmas bonfire and treats in the garden.

The Thursday, December 25, Christmas Day, worship begins at 10 a.m. with music, full choir, and a sermon entitled “Baby Talk.” St. Andrew’s is at Calle San Lucas 19, a block south of the Carretera in Riberas del Pilar.

San Andrés English

“Today’s Mass is a great song to the everlasting love of God revealed in God’s covenant (love – pact) with God’s people,” says Basil G. Royston, D.Min., about the message of the English Mass at 9 a.m. on Sunday, December 21 at the San Andrés Parish Church. “On this last Sunday of Advent we praise the mystery of God’s love kept secret for endless ages, but now revealed through a new Arc of the Covenant, Mary of Nazareth.”

Members of the English-speaking congregation will join some other supporters of the Villa Infantil orphanage on the lake’s south shore for a pair of holiday events on December 20 and 24. Also attending from Gallup, New Mexico will be Madre Magda, the Mother General of the Order of Nuns who care for the children in the home. Three of the children, all siblings, were adopted this month by a Guadalajara family.

According to Royston, the 9 a.m. English Mass on Thursday, December 25, will celebrate the birth of Christ who was to bring the joy of God’s saving love to the whole world. “We make our own the jubilant cry of the angels: ‘Glory to God in the highest.’ We celebrate the marvelous events of the first morning of a new world, when the kindness and love of God our Savior made us God’s holy people, the Lord’s Redeemed, God’s ‘sought-after,’ and God’s ‘city-not-forsaken.’”

The Little Chapel

The interdenominational congregation of the Little Chapel by the Lake will hold two services during the week of December 21-27 to celebrate the birth of Jesus. During the 11:15 a.m. on Sunday, December 21 regular worship service Rev. Gene Raymer will ask, “How Did He Wind Up There?” as he explores the reasons the Son of God was born in a lowly stable.

Members of the congregation will join with the congregation of Christ Church Lakeside for a Christmas Eve candlelight service on Wednesday, December 24, 5:30 p.m. The service will feature the singing of Christmas carols and conclude with the lighting of candles.
The Little Chapel is located on the mountain side of the Carretera just east of the entrance to the Chula Vista golf course.

Christ Church

The Christ Church service celebrating the last Sunday of Advent begins on Sunday, December 21, 9:30 a.m. and features lessons and carols. There will be no communion and no sermon during the service. The Casa La Ola Bell Choir will open the service at promptly at 9:30 a.m.

The Christ Church members will join the congregation of the Little Chapel by the Lake in a Christmas Eve Candlelight Service of Holy Communion on Wednesday, December 24, 5:30 p.m. Rev. Danny Borkowski of Christ Church will preside and Rev. Gene Raymer of the Little Chapel will present the sermon.

Unitarian Universalist

The Lake Chapala Unitarian Universalist congregation will celebrate Christmas during the regular 10:30 a.m. service on Sunday, December 21.

The choir will lead the congregation in singing the carols that fit into the service theme, “Tis The Season: The Story Behind The Carols.” The program will also include a special presentation by the San Juan Cosalá Youth Choir, directed by Danny Medeles and accompanied by Rodrigo Leal. A coffee hour will follow.

Unitarian Universalists search for truth along many paths and gather around common moral values that include the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This is a caring, liberal, open-minded community that encourages others to seek their own spiritual path wherever it leads.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship meets at Plaza de la Ribera at Rio Bravo 10A in Ajijic. For further information, call (376) 766-1458 or visit www.Uuflc.org.

Open Circle

Open Circle will meet at the Hotel Real de Chapala at 10 a.m. on Sunday, December 21 to properly view the slide show presented by Manuel Aguilar on the history of everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure and Mexico’s gift to the world, chocolate.

Aguilar will share how the seeds of the cacao plant were used as coins in commerce, and cacao had an essential function in pre-Hispanic religious rites.The Maya believed that the heavenly drink would feed them in the afterlife. Now we ask, “why wait?”

Aguilar is professor of world and Latin American art history at California State University, Los Angeles. He is author of many books and articles on diverse topics, ranging from the pre-Hispanic ball courts to the life of Diego Rivera.

Open Circle will resume its regular schedule of meetings at the Lake Chapala Society on Sunday, December 27.

Heart of Awareness

The Heart of Awareness Buddhist Community will not meet for meditation and dharma teachings on Wednesday, December 24. The session at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 31 will be held at Paseo de los Velaros 60 in Lower La Floresta. The sangha will move to its new location on January 1 and the January 7 meeting will be held in the new space at Guadalupe Victoria 101, Suites A and B.

Heart of Awareness is a non-sectarian Buddhist practice community grounded in the original teachings of the Buddha as preserved in the Theravada/Vipassana tradition. Membership in Heart of Awareness is open to those with Zen, Tibetan or Shambhala backgrounds, as well as those with no previous meditation experience. For further information, call Karin Miles at (376) 766-0020.