12 December 2007

Ghost of Christmas Cancelled

Every year, when I put up my Christmas lights and get ready for Noche Buena, the High Holy Day of Cubandom, I think back to when I was in child.

Not your warm fuzzy nostalgic Christmas memories, mind you.

I think back to our old Christmas tree and the old decorations that my dad and I used to put up. I knew every single decoration on that tree. They were like family members. Irreplaceable. Literally. It wasn’t like you could go out and buy new ones. If one would happen to fall and break, it was like you lost a family member and there would be a hole on that tree forever.

You see, Christmas was a capitalist, imperialist, bourgeois and useless tradition to children of the revolution like me. Like anything fun also seemed to be. And the Revolutionary Grincho, gringo hating Fidel had been sent by providence to take all the joy out of life and cancel Christmas.

Christmas was like any other day. Not really. It was more miserable than any other day because it was the day that had been robbed. Stolen. Cancelled. Taken Away.

And so you went to school and you talked about this Imperialist Yankee named Santiclo with your friends. He was no Rey Mago, but he had his own jolly style. Besides, he had all the capitalist, imperialist, bourgeois toys- you know, the good ones. I was stuck with a “juguete basico”. Don’t ask.

Anyway, to make a long story longer, I think we would not get any days off from school other than New Year’s. Years later, I read that the aging Grincho, in all his magnanimousness, had decided to let Cubans celebrate Christmas once again. That was in 1998, when JPII visited Cuba. Bless Him.

And today, I get the news that for the first time since the year of the big mistake,1959, Cuban children will get a Christmas Vacation.

A Christmas Vacation. In Cuba. Shock of shocks. Vacaciones Navideñas.

My kids, who live in the land of religious freedom, home of the brave and pay for everything with green bills with “God We Trust” printed on them, get a “Winter Break”. Vacaciones Navideñas have been outlawed here by the politically correct revolutionaries. Son of a bitch! ¡Me cago en su madre!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tell you. It's a world gone mad.

Juan Cuellar said...

Out of series! The end is delightful. Well done.