Read Online Las Christmas by Esmeralda Santiago - Free Book Online Page B

Lions’ Club present and asked my mother if we could stop at the fire station on the way to my grandparents’ house. I knew the firemen also collected presents for poor families. She pulled up and I ran in and shoved the gift into the hand of the first grown-up I saw.

Holiday Punch
    No kid grows up in the United States without being subjected to some sort of fruit punch, with or without the help of the local Lions’ Club. The punch bowl can be filled with any combination of juice and soda. In Mexico, the
Ponche de Navidad
often includes indigenous fruits, like guava and
tejocote,
scented with a dash of cinnamon; and for the adults a little tequila, rum, or
vino tinto.
This recipe (typical of the punch served by Lions’ Clubs across the country) comes to us courtesy of Marion Cooper of Simi Valley, California. It’s easy to make, delicious, and perfect for Christmas parties.

    Mix all ingredients and pour over ice.
    Makes
20
servings

Julia Alvarez
    Julia Alvarez is originally from the Dominican Republic, but she immigrated to
this country with her parents at the age of ten. She is the author of three novels,
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies,
and
¡Yo!,
two books of poems,
Homecoming
and
The Other Side
,
and a
forthcoming collection of essays,
Something to Declare.
She teaches at
Middlebury College. This story is a fictionalized account of her own experiences
growing up in the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic.
    SWITCHING TO SANTICLÓ

    â€œHE’S GOING TO COME through the roof?” I asked. I didn’t like the sound of it.
    My cousin Fico, who was usually my informer in the ways of the world, was telling me how Santicló would deliver his gifts in a few days. Ever since the Americans had occupied the country and put our dictator in place, customs from up north had replaced the old ways. Now we would be getting presents from big, fat, blue-eyed Santicló. That is, if either of us were getting any gifts. As the two hellions in the family, we had already been told that Santicló would probably just bring us cat poopoo in a shoe box.
    I liked it much more when
niño
Jesus brought us presents. Even if we only got one present apiece, it was guaranteed. He reserved hell for people who didn’t behave, but He didn’t spoil Christmas by bringing up punishments.

    That was not His way.
    He also didn’t come down through the roof in the middle of the night and scare you half to death. Christmas morning beside the crèche under the sea-grape tree painted white and blooming out of a paint can covered in tinfoil, you found your bicycle with the long plastic ribbons coming out of the handles, or hanging from one of the sea-grape branches was your cowgirl outfit. If only it had been a cowboy outfit with a holster like Fico’s instead of a sissy pocketbook with a vanity mirror! But to say so was to be ungrateful to
el niño
Jesus, which wasn’t a nice thing to do to a baby who was going to grow up and be crucified. In this way, Santicló might be better. He might listen to complaints. He might take returns.
    â€œHe might be here late, though, because he’s got to come down from Nueva York,” Fico went on, a grin spreading on his face.
    That did sound promising. Nueva York was where toys came from. Whenever our grandparents went north, they came back with suitcases full of games and puzzles and paddle balls and plastic sheets you could draw on, lift the sheets, and—abracadabra—the drawing was gone! And, of course, practical things like school shoes and book bags and Russell Stover chocolates that you studied carefully when the box went by to be sure you picked one that didn’t have something yucky inside. Ever so gently you pressed with the ball of your finger to see if it was a taker—one with nuts or with more chocolate in the center. Quickly, you popped it into your mouth, and then, if you were