By Nike
HAVANA TIMES – We Cubans do everything in our own way. That’s how it’s been since the beginning of this government when many things were forbidden, for example Xmas celebrations. When you prohibit something, there’s always someone who doesn’t follow the laws, and more than one person who had always celebrated December 24 with their families considered it a special day for Catholic and not very Catholic families to get together to celebrate.
They set up their nativity scenes around the tree, and after dinner that day they sat and drank hot chocolate with a slice of cake while they opened their presents. My mother always recalled this part of her childhood with great nostalgia.
Since it was forbidden, many people followed the order without complaining. In general, almost everyone stopped celebrating December 24th and began celebrating December 31st. That was allowed, since the government decreed it as the day of the Revolutionary triumph.
Many very Catholic families did continue celebrating in secret and visiting the Churches; because of that, they were the objects of condemnation on the part of their neighbors.
During these days of the Xmas and New Year’s holidays, I was remembering a woman who was very devoted to Jesus of Nazareth – very Catholic, apostolic, and Roman, as my mother used to say – who maintained her traditions and beliefs, despite living in the Cuba of the 1960s.
Since she was a girl, they had celebrated the eve of the birth of the baby Jesus in her house, with a supper where the whole family came together. This woman was rejected, just for believing in God and in the family, but despite everything she remained faithful to her traditions and her beliefs. She put up her little Christmas tree in her room so the neighbors wouldn’t see it and her family continued their dinners in secret.
She dreamed of going to live in the United States, “the North as she called it,” where part of her family emigrated in the sixties, because they had owned a carpentry business that was confiscated by the government.
This woman was married in the Church and had two sons from that marriage. Her husband drove a 1956 Ford, a “big almond” as Cubans still call the rounded vintage cars, and would use it to make special trips for people he knew, since he didn’t have a permit to be a taxi driver. That’s what he began doing when they took his family’s property away, since he’d been working there and was a magnificent carpenter.
She worked as a pastry chef. She made special sweets and sold them to families and to the Church, which she visited religiously. She took her children there as well, and they were marginalized for that. They weren’t allowed to study a career or work for the State, because the family had filed a family reunification request to be allowed go live in the United States.
Many years passed, and their permission never arrived. And that’s how those boys grew up. In 1994, now young men, they left the country as rafters, via Guantanamo. The parents felt too old for such a journey, and so were left with just their dream of going to live in the United States.
The last time I saw her was on a corner in downtown Havana, she was selling tablets of peanut brittle and looked quite old. It was hard for me to recognize her, since I remembered her as a strong and feisty woman who kept her family well sheltered from any shortages at the table. However, in spite of her very advanced age, her strong spirit was obvious, as well as her desire not to stop working and earning her own money as the independent woman she always was.
She continued celebrating Christmas Eve on December 24 and visiting her Church. Now her sons come from up North to visit her and to celebrate this day in family, that’s so important to her.
There were many families in Cuba who never gave up celebrating December 24th, and that’s how it was until 1998, when the Pope visited Cuba and held a dialogue with the government, convincing them to make December 25 a holiday. Incredibly, he succeeded in this positive step for the Cuban people and their traditions.
And I can tell you that beginning that year, little Xmas trees began to be seen in all the houses. Even the State owned stores sold Christmas trees. Cubans have a quality that’s difficult to explain, but without believing in God or the Bible, Catholic or no, they put little trees up in their houses. I know my people, and what they like best is to gather around the table with their families, to share a supper at the end of the year, because Cubans love parties and celebrating together with their families.
Read more from Nike’s diary here.
