My First Week in Mérida: A Different Kind of December

I have been in Mérida for only a week, yet the city has already begun to breathe its rhythm into me. There is something tender about arriving in a place that feels both familiar and entirely new, something steadying about stepping into a landscape that mirrors your own life while offering you a gentler way of being.

A Comfort in the Familiar

It is December here, and the holiday season is unfolding in warm, steady layers. Christmas trees glow in public squares. Strings of lights sway in the evening breeze. Markets expand into the streets, and there is a hum of families searching for small treasures to bring home. The scene reminds me of all the Decembers I have known, yet softened somehow, as if the volume has been turned down and the warmth turned up.

There is even a Walmart half a mile from where I stay. I do not normally shop at Walmart anymore, but its presence feels like a familiar landmark. When I am unsure where to find something in this new city of small storefronts and unfamiliar aisles, I know I can walk there and find what I need.

But most of Mérida is shaped by small, local shops. Family-run bakeries perfuming the street with warm pan dulce. Artists selling handmade jewelry, embroidered clothing, pottery, and textiles dyed in colors that feel like they belong to this land. Markets are filled with artisans whose work carries the imprint of their hands. It feels good to be in a place where creativity and craft thrive, where shopping feels more like meeting your neighbors than moving through a chain store.

And everywhere I walk, people greet me. Soft buenos días in the morning. Warm buenas tardes in the afternoon light. Strangers look up, acknowledge you, and offer a smile. It feels simple, but the simple things often change you the most.

A Different Kind of Holiday Season

The holiday season feels different here. The air seems to carry less urgency. There is no heavy pulse of consumerism, no tension rising from crowds trying to do and buy and accomplish. As someone who easily feels the emotions of people around me, I notice the difference immediately.

In the United States, the holidays often felt like a race I could never win. Too many gifts, too many expectations, too many deadlines stacked on top of one another. I often felt like I was running even when standing still.

Here, I do not sense that strain. People walk more slowly. They linger with one another. They savor their time instead of rushing through it. The holidays feel rooted in togetherness rather than consumption. And it makes something inside me unclench, something I carried for years without noticing its weight.

Sundays Belong to Family

This past Sunday, a historic street was closed to traffic so families could fill it with bicycles, rollerblades, conversations, and laughter. As I passed through, I saw parents steadying their children on wobbly bikes, friends sharing jokes, couples strolling without hurry. I did not participate, but I felt part of it anyway simply by being there. Sometimes being a witness to joy makes you feel included in it.

I walked 8.5 miles that day and everywhere I went I found small pockets of community gathered in the plazas. These plazas are woven into the city with intention. They are places where people come to be with one another, to rest, to talk, to sit in the shade, to listen to the world moving around them. Conversation chairs sit in pairs throughout the plazas, each one facing the other so two people can speak easily, as if the city itself is encouraging connection. These spaces feel like the living rooms of Mérida, open to everyone and used as naturally as breathing.

In the States, parks exist but often feel separated from daily life. That separation is not accidental. Many American cities are designed around efficiency, speed, and division: wide roads cutting through neighborhoods, commercial zones kept apart from residential ones, green spaces placed on the outskirts rather than at the center. The structure itself encourages distance.

Here, connection is what the architecture seems to prioritize. The city invites people toward one another rather than away. Gathering is not something you must seek out. It is something you simply step into.

A City That Softens You

A week is not long, but it is long enough to notice how a place can change the way you move, breathe, and pay attention. Mérida feels like a reminder that life can be spacious. That days can unfold instead of feeling rushed. That community can be something you feel simply by walking through a plaza or exchanging a greeting with a stranger.

I am grateful for every moment so far. And I find myself wondering what might shift in a person when they spend time in a place that values slowness, craft, family, and warmth.

From Mérida, I offer you this gentle invitation

To choose connection whenever you can.
To pause where you might hurry.
To notice what is tender.
And to remember that the simplest things
often fill us the most.