No Christmas in Cuba

            So last Tuesday, February 15, for our roundtable class we visited with and got to listen to Father José Felix who is the priest at Santa Rita, a church about 20 blocks from where we live.  What he shared with us was incredibly interesting and shed a lot of light on what life was like for a priest as well as many aspects of Cuban life.

            The most shocking and saddening thing that he shared with us was that Cubans do not celebrate Christmas. The government has celebrated it once in the fifty years since the revolution, in 1997.  The Cuban people are more than willing to and try to celebrate Christmas, but it is not a government-sanctioned holiday. So, as a result, there is still class at the universities and all of the state-run businesses (which are almost all of the businesses in the country) are still open.  These people are living on thirty US dollars a month, so they cannot afford to take time off to celebrate a holiday all about buying presents.

            Growing up I watched a lot of movies so often I relate real life to the silver screen and vice versa.  One of my favorite movies is The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  In this movie the evil White Witch has frozen Narnia and it is always winter but never Christmas.  When Aslan, the hero and savior of Narnia comes back, one of the first signs that the White Witch has lost her power is that Santa Claus comes to Narnia.  Cuba is obviously not a frozen wasteland, but in a lot of ways it is a country frozen in time.  It is paralyzed, without the infrastructure to continue to support existing business and lacking the ability to progress.  So some parallels between the movie and real life are clear.

            But back to what Father José said about Christmas.  I know that in the United States Christmas has become an excuse for overindulgence and wastefulness as a substitute for expressing inexpressible emotions for loved ones, but that is not what it is supposed to be about.  It is supposed to be a chance for people of all ages, all demographics, from all corners of the globe to celebrate the birth of a little boy who would change the world.  It is as if this country is frozen in a perpetual state of winter, but never get the chance to experience the hope and joy that come with Christmas.  I wish that I had been here at Christmas though because I am beginning to know the Cuban people a little bit more and I am beginning to understand that if anything, they are a people of hope and joy.  I wish I could have seen how they reacted to and celebrated this global holiday.