Last time i bought some tamales I mentioned that I would like to try to make them some day. The lady smiled and said they are a lot of work, which is the reason they only sell them one day a week.
While growing up my mother and one of her co-workers would take one saturday and make tamales for both families, enough for the day and a bunch for the freezer. Always in the fall when the corn husks and right corn meal where available, at the time these were specialty ingredients only available at the end of harvest that the stores brought in for the migrant worker community. I miss the smell, all burners going with different meats and steamers.