On the 6th Day of Christmas Past,
Question: How can we “create” Christmas like in this Cuban Christmas Memory, regardless of our pocket book?
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“Creating Christmas”
As a child growing up in an upper middle class, professional family in Havana, Cuba, I enjoyed comfortable, even privileged, circumstances.
My grandmother, Mamucha, was the family matriarch, and her home was the family gathering place. Each Christmastime she purchased a large fir tree for her living room, which the whole family elaborately adorned with lights, ornaments, and tinsel, topping it off with a star symbolizing the star of Bethlehem. At the foot of the tree, a nativity set reminded us of the Savior’s humble birth.
On December 24 all of us—aunts, uncles, and cousins—would gather at grandmother’s table for Christmas supper. By 9:00 p.m. the children were tucked in bed with strict instructions to stay put. It was a magical time for us children, comparing notes and looking forward to the presents we’d receive from Santa Claus and, on the feast of Epiphany, from the three Magi.
Those bountiful Christmases came to an abrupt end the year I turned 10. Because of political changes in the country, my mother, my brother, and I had to leave Cuba within three days, taking with us little more than the clothes on our backs.
As a native of Puerto Rico, my mother had American citizenship. As her children, my brother and I also traveled with American passports.
My father, however, was a Cuban citizen, so he could not leave the country. As we boarded a plane for Miami, Florida, we had no way of knowing when, or if, we’d see our father again.
Hours later we landed in Puerto Rico, where my mother’s family could lend a helping hand. We lived with relatives for a few months until Mother secured a position with the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras.
We rented a small apartment near the university so my mother, my 9-year old brother, and I could walk to school and work. The apartment was furnished with a few hand-me-downs from relatives and some odd-and-end pieces from a second-hand store. A talented seamstress, Mother turned old sheets into drapes and bedspreads and recovered old toss pillows in brightly colored fabric. Although a far cry from the comforts of our family homestead in Havana, our humble apartment was neat, tidy, and attractive. Mother made it a home.
As Christmas approached, my brother and I kept asking when we would get our Christmas tree.
The truth was, we could not afford one, so Mother made it a game for us to “create” our own tree that year. From a second-hand store she secured a large string of Christmas lights, which we taped to the wall in the shape of a Christmas tree. With yellow construction paper we made a star to top the tree, and with other bright colors we cut out “ornaments.” Paper chain “garlands” taped to the wall filled in the rest. We made a small manger with twigs and grass clippings from a neighbor’s yard. Empty spools of thread painted with tempera paint became the bodies of Mary, Joseph, and the baby, with scraps of cloth to cover their “heads.”
Christmas-themed crafts, made at school, became the presents we exchanged that year. We wrapped each one with care, placing them on the floor at the base of the “tree.”
On Christmas Eve we enjoyed a meal of rice and beans, wrote letters to our father, and sang Christmas carols as we stood by our “tree.” Once we’d gone to bed, mother pulled out her sewing machine and worked late into the night making us new clothes to wear Christmas morning.
Life changed for the better after that year. My father suffered a stroke and was allowed to leave Cuba and join us. A series of job changes for my mother improved our family’s circumstances. Eventually, we moved to the United States and settled in New Rochelle, New York, where our family found the gospel and was baptized in 1965 as a result of the New York World’s Fair.
Many wonderful things have happened in my life in the ensuing years, but I look back on that humble Christmas of 1960 as my most memorable one. It was then that my mother taught me that the spirit of Christmas was not about things, but about love, family, and traditions that have nothing to do with money.
We can create a Christmas feeling by showing love to others. It doesn’t matter if we have lots of “things”, what matters is how we act.
It doesn’t take money to create Christmas. It takes family, love & traditions .. Christmas is celebrating the birth of the savior. We give what we can from the heart.
Sometime when I was around seven or eight, our family didn’t have much and that year we made gifts for each other. We decorated our Christmas tree with popcorn strung on string. We also made colored paper chains. That was our tree decoration for that year. Even though the presents weren’t expensive. It was one of the best Christmases I can remember.
In my early married years we had many meager Christmases. My best Christmas memories are of holding my young children tight in their blanket sleepers, sharing their warmth in a cold drafty apartment. I was so grateful that they had never known a bountiful Christmas. We sang and made strings of fruit loops to decorate the tree. I loved seeing them act out the nativity story. I yearn for Christmas to be so simple and sacred again with my children.
We create Christmas around love, family, and traditions … not around things and money. Even in great poverty, we can still feel the warmth of Christmas.
This author learned that the spirit of Christmas was not about things, but about love, family, and traditions. If we keep Christ as our focus, we can find creative ways to work together as a family to celebrate His birth.
Love is the true gift of Christmas. Christ was and is the greatest gift of love ever given. When I was on my mission I met a woman of very humble circumstances. On Christmas Day, she brought my companion and I “Christmas”. She had handmade two ornaments and wrote us a card. I think she may have given us a tiny bag of candy to share. It was the most touching act of love to me and made that Christmas perfect. That took place almost 30 years ago and I will never forget what she did.
Christmas’s past consisted of family traditions, decorating with well used and loved decorations, and visiting with loved ones. It was a magical time of the year, one that I would like to rekindle.
So often we get caught up in the commercialization of the Christmas Season. But even in the humblest of circumstances, we can focus on what is most important – love, family and traditions.
We all feel like we have to provide a fabulous Christmas for our families. This beautiful story shows that kids are more resilient than we think. If there is love in the home, and the Christmas spirit , kids can feel that and be happy.
Keeping it simple with homemade gifts. Thinking of others and what to bring them. Learning about our ancestors and what others did to make a Christmas a happy and joyous time. As the Grinch said “And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
I feel the true spirit of Christmas comes when we serve others, create ornaments/gifts, and work together. You used the word “create”. That is exactly what we should do in our homes every day–not just at Christmas time. We create a loving, caring, giving, and serving environment where the Spirit can teach and guide us.
Author Denise Lindberg says it perfectly “my mother taught me that the spirit of Christmas was not about things, but about love, family, and traditions that have nothing to do with money”. We can do acts of service for others, as a family, or individual. That brings Christmas to your heart.
What a wonderful story about a memorable Christmas! We learn things by the things we suffer and this sweet little family learned that Christmas is about Christ, family love, and not about things.