cafe y cultura
Costumbres
Navideñas!
In our “native lands” there were many customs taught
to us by our parents, and by our parents’ parents, each
associated with enjoying time with family and friends
as we celebrate the holidays! These are the warmest
times of the year, simply because they are filled with
a certain magic.
Chances are, if you put a bunch
of Latinos together in a house,
yard, club or hall and throw on
some of our great Latin music,
you’re going to have one heck of
a party! Our fiestas are beyond
comparison – far from boring
or mundane. Even on regular
occasions you still find plenty of
food, drink, music and dancing.
But during “Las Navidades” we
go ALL OUT! Preparing lots
of delicious traditional dishes,
decorating the house with all
your treasured Christmas decorations and humming those
great canciones in preparation
of our next fiesta. Hispanos
have many similarities…not
only our shared language, but
also our customs, look, styles,
beliefs and traditions.
Not all Latinos are celebrating
the birth of Jesus during Christmas, but many Christians and
Messianic Jews (which our family practices) from around the
world do.
-Jolie
La Isla Del Encanto!
El Jorgorio está, El Jorgorio está,
bien por la maceta. Vamos a bailar, aja! WEPA! WEPA! WEPA!
Las Parrandas
¡Ya vienen las Navidades! That’s
an expression that is clearly
etched in my fondest memories of my boricua upbringing.
As a child, I remember visiting
El Borinquen during Las Navidades. It seemed like just about
every year my parents would
visit mis abuelitos in Orocovis for the Holidays. Legen has
it (according to my abuelito)
Puerto Rican Christmas’ are rumored to be among the longest
celebrated in Latin America!
They actually started celebrating
Las Navidades in late October
and often celebrated up until
Passover and further! Supposedly on the night of Passover,
they would go so far as to back
up the clock so that they could
have more time to continue El
Jorgorio. This was often called
La Media Raja or La Napa.
I still remember the sound of
las parrandas, and the chiki que
chiki of the guiro. My favorite part of these parrandas was
the way they started” A group
of us would gather in the batey
(front lawn) of someone’s home
in the middle of the night, and
all you could hear was the combined whispers, the children’s
giggles and the loud: Shhhhhhh!”. Then, all of a sudden the
music would fill the air with its
beats until our friends would
wake up, run for the door…
still in their pajamas, the lady of
the house often wearing rollers.
Since it was considered a huge
honor to have a parranda at
your home, the hosts would immediately prepare a warm meal
for the parranderos. Afterward,
it was common for the current
hosts to become guests at other
homes that would be visited that
night. Home-made Ron Pitorro
(Ron Caña) lent that extra spe-
cial feeling to the evening, especially when accompanied by a
group of friends/family, a good
cuatro termpao, a guiro, a set of
maracas, a cow bell, some clapping hands, some pretty good
singers, (you get the picture).
The aguinaldos made everyone
want to dance, and it seemed
this went on hasta el amanecer.
My tio Sico entertained everyone with his trovas y bombas,
sweet decimas of inspirational
frenzies. Yeah…those were the
days! The jorgorio would go on
all night and into the morning.
them with yerba Santa Maria.
They would then take these
boxes and place them under
their beds. The next morning
the Three Kings would have
come and delivered presents
in exchange for the yerba
Santa Maria. Th