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I almost missed out on Santa Claus as a kid. But my parents, who were game enough to incorporate Anglo (or rather, “American”) traditions into our decidedly un-American home, were good sports and combined the traditions of their homeland (Cuba) with the traditions of their adopted land, so that we have this really fun mix of activities that make these days really special.

The wonderful thing about this mixed celebration is that we got to keep Noche Buena, which is really the best part of all (well, not as a child. As a child, it was definitely Christmas morning when we got to open all the presents. But I’m a grown-up now, and I enjoy the finer things, like a big, fat roasted pig to feast on).

Noche Buena is celebrated on Christmas Eve. It literally means “Good Night”, and is the real Christmas celebration practiced in Cuba (and many other Caribbean/Latin American countries). It is, basically, a big meal that takes all day to prepare. The centerpiece of the meal is a whole pig that’s traditionally cooked by digging a pit in your backyard and putting the pig in it, covering it with palm leaves, putting a metal pan over it and building a fire on the pan. While this is still a relatively popular method, the use of a caja china is much more common. The pig takes hours to cook, and it’s a wonderful kind of torture to smell that fabulous smell while your appetite just gets bigger and you feel like you’re going to die if you can’t crunch on that juicy ear NOW.

After the big meal comes Midnight Mass (Misa de Gallo) to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus. These masses tend to fill up here in Miami, and we attended a number of them in my childhood, but don’t currently attend (my parents still do most years). The next morning, on Christmas Day, we open our gifts and have some kind of meal, but nothing on the scale of Noche Buena. It’s really a low-key day where we visit relatives and do little else.

This is because Christmas Day was not really celebrated in Cuba. While Cubans knew of Santa Claus, he was considered an American entity that had nothing to do with them. So Christmas Day was just a day for the faithful to go to church, visit family, or recover from the feast the night before. The tradition was to make some kind of meal out of the leftovers (this was called a montería). But there was no gift-giving.

Gift-giving in my culture was reserved for January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Three Wise Men followed the star to the manger. The Dia de los Reyes Magos was when children in Cuba received toys (and only children). So as a child, my parents would do Christmas Day for us (complete with cookies for Santa and lettuce for the reindeer), but they would save one gift, which we’d receive on the morning of January 6. While we never left the Tres Reyes Magos any snacks, we’d leave something for their camels. It was such a great way to extend the holiday just a little longer!

Around this date, there is in Miami a Three Kings Parade. It’s something members of the community came up with in the early days of exile (2008 will be its 37th year), and it was a highlight of the season for me. It takes place on a stretch of a main thoroughfare called Calle Ocho, and features floats, bands, characters and – in full regalia and on real camels that seemed so huge when I was a little girl – the three kings themselves.

It seems like I had enough holiday goodness to keep me busy and happy, but for the last nine years, I’ve also been celebrating Hanukkah, since my husband is Jewish. There is something so meaningful and moving to me about celebrating this awesome hodge-podge of traditions; and the best part of all this is that now I get to share it all with my son.

I feel so warm and fuzzy now!

by Tere

[tags]holidays, vacation, kids, children, celebrations, Christmas, Hanukkah, connections, ethnicities, differences, Cuba, Calle Ocho, Miami, Three Kings[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by ovizo0n, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved