My mother didn’t talk too much about the Christmas in Puerto Rico. The Three Kings Day celebration was more festive. We forget that Advent was (and is) a solemnn time in the church year. Christmas was for church, after that the parties began. People would go house to house singing carols and getting louder and louder until they were fed. On Three Kings Eve children would leave carrots, hay, and water for the camels. In return the Magi would leave gifts.
Once we moved to the mainland Christmas was the holiday we celebrated. Perhaps the camels were too tropical for the cold gray north. I don’t have memories of specific Christmases just scattered images. The old fashioned lights that looked like candles, if candles were clear glass with colored water and lights in them. Angels’ hair– fiberglass hanks that were teased out and spread into webs that caught the light and spread it into halos. Glass light bulbs that could go out and you knew which ones could be individually replaced. The angel hair looked pretty but like all fiberglass it itched like Hades. Stencils for the windows that were filled in with a window cleaner called GlassWax. It made cute frosted images on the window and when you wiped it off the window was clean.
The one gift that I remember is my Dale Evans cowgirl outfit! It was the whole deal. A skirt, vest, shirt and best of all– the guns and holster. As tomboys my friend Marie and I usually beat the boys at every game, but Cowboys and Indians needed guns. When Marie and I got our outfits we were in kid heaven. Now we could play every game and beat the other side there too. So strange as I now detest guns.
I hope my kids and grand-kids have as warm memories when they are my age.