Christmas Memories of long ago...

I have been reminiscing a lot lately about the Christmas holidays in Cuba back when I was growing up. I guess that is a sign of old age when you start thinking and remembering that far back. I'm talking about early and mid 1940's.

My parents were very much into Christmas and being a mixed culture household (father Cuban, mother American) they would take customs from both cultures and we children benefited as our Christmas was really fuller and seemed to last longer than our playmates'.

There are a lot of jumbling remembrances, even from when I was about three years old......my twin brothers were just two years old and I remember the Christmas tree being placed INSIDE their playpen so that they could not reach it and grab and pull or open packages before they were supposed to!

 

 I remember all three of us (our little sister did not come along until I was almost nine) sitting in our little chairs and little rocking chairs lined up in the living room, singing Christmas carols in English and Spanish as our parents put up the tree. During those days they were usually Australian pines, (or as they are known in Hawaii, ironwoods) with the long thin needles and little-bitty pinecones. These trees grew profusely in Cuba.  

 My parents would place thick wads of white cotton along the branches to make it look like snow. The lights were the now-old-fashioned and multi-colored bigger bulbs and we had a beautiful collection of ornaments that had accumulated through the years. We would oooooh and aaaaahh! as each ornament was unwrapped and hung.

 I remember that for a month or so before the holidays, my mom would receive copies of the Atlanta newspaper in cardboard cylinders mailed from our aunt who lived there. Inside the pages of the newspaper, our aunt would insert sheets of colorful American Christmas wrapping paper.

 

The week of Christmas, we would all be dressed up and taken to visit the Asilos de Ancianos (homes for the elderly), hospitals and convents where the nuns would set up huge and very elaborate Crèche or manger scenes every year......usually taking half a room. They would "build" whole tiny villages, with mountains, and rivers and lakes (sometimes with real running water) and place miniature palm trees and shepherds and sheep, and the Three Kings would be seen, with their camels, way up on the mountains making their way down to the stable, following a big star, which hung right over the stable.

To be continued….