A Dominican Christmas

Loupe loved Christmas. The abundant music, tons of family, the garish lights, lavish decorations, the infectious joy and the food, oh, that wonderful, only-available-during-the-holidays food! She could never get enough of that. And her family always seemed to out-do themselves every year. It was as if they only wanted to cook during the holidays.

“What’s this called, Maria?” Loupe asked already dishing some up before getting an answer.

“Choriso and mangu made with platano maduro,” Maria replied.

“Oh, I love that stuff! And this?” Loupe went to the next bowl and took a huge scoop.

Maria smiled and said,  “Mondongo but you won’t want me to tell you what’s in it so don’t ask.”

“Who cares what’s in it?  I love that stuff,” Loupe gushed. “What are these?”  She took several.

“Pastelles. How in the world can you eat like that and not worry about getting fat?” Maria asked sounding equal parts astounded and envious. “I could only eat like that when I was a kid in Santiago. We had to walk everywhere, you know, no car, not even a burro, so...instant exercise.”

Loupe swallowed a bite of a very yummy beef Pastelle before evasively saying, “Oh, you know, lots of Pilates.”  She went off with a giggle bubbling up within her. Wouldn’t her aunt Maria be surprised to learn her secret? Surprised and shocked, Loupe thought happily. At the present time she didn’t care if she gained weight. Actually, she expected to. She only just found out she was pregnant and utterly delighted about it.

Ordinarily, a nineteen year old, unmarried, Catholic Dominican girl shouldn’t be so thrilled when finding herself pregnant, but she had another secret which pleased her even more, her Billy. They decided they were eloping after the holidays to fend off more arguing from both sides of their families. You’re too young. You’re from different worlds. You don’t know what love is. You don’t have a clue what it takes to make a marriage work. You’re too different. You’re from drastically different cultures. You have no money. The excuses went on forever.  Billy and Loupe scoffed at each and every one of them.

She sat with her plate eating contentedly as the conversation swirled around her, some in English most in Spanish and some in a mix they all called Spanglish. Loupe’s uncle Pablo, a stern old-time school teacher, hated Spanglish and corrected them every chance he got. She was pretty sure her younger cousins did it on purpose just to rile him up.

“Aye, Dios Mio!” he cried exasperated. “One or the other, you crazy ninos.”

“Don’t you mean crazy kids or ninos loco, Tio Pablo?” Miguel asked smirking. He  got chased around the room and a playful smack on the butt for that one.

In a whirl of snow and blustery wind the front door opened and in came Loupe’s second cousin Julia with a man she’d never seen before.

“A gringo,” she muttered to herself, taking note that he was almost an exact copy of her Billy. He was tall, blond, very American and by the look in his eyes, amazed at the quantity of people all packed into one relatively small house. Loupe could sympathize. Billy had the same reaction the first time he came to one of her family gatherings.

“Are all these people related to you?” Billy asked doubtfully.

“Yeah. Most of them couldn’t make it tonight. You’ll meet the rest tomorrow at church,” Loupe said casually.

“The rest?” he shrieked, incredulous. “You mean there’s more?” 

Loupe just laughed at him. It was true she had a huge family all together almost twenty-five aunts and uncles and entirely too many cousins to count even if you could get them to stand still long enough for it. There also were the  people that were distantly related by marriage or had been at one point in the past century and those who they knew just because they also happened to be Dominican.  Once in a foreign country any connection to the old country made you more like family. Once in the family, you couldn’t escape until death and even then everyone would talk about you forever whether they liked you or not. That’s family. That’s community.

Loupe knew it was like that with the Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, all those hyphenated Americans. Birds of a feather, she mused.

Indeed they were a large family and every year it only got bigger. New babies born and more coming from the old country or Home as some of the older folks still called The Dominican Republic. Loupe’s father and mother were some of those, but she didn’t remember anything of it. She had been too little when she came to the states. Most of her cousins had been born right here, but the Dominican culture had been so ingrained they may as well have been born there, too.

All holidays were the same, just like this, family staying rooted to their culture yet with Americanism obviously taking hold in strange and funny ways.

“What’s that you got there, Julio?” his uncle Juan asked.

“Mp3 player,” Julio answered.

“What’s it for?”

“Music. Wanna hear?”  He got up and shoved the ear piece in. Juan made a face and pulled it out.

“You call that music? Got any merengue, bachata or salsa?”

“Uh, no, only rap,” Julio replied with a shrug.

“I’ll stick with my guitar and maracas,” Juan said derisively.

Loupe laughed then glanced at a group of her cousins all showing off their cell phones and snapping each other’s pictures.

“Phones that take pictures?” Javier said in wonder. “When I was your age we didn’t have a camera and we didn’t even have a regular phone.”

“What are you talking about? You didn’t even know what a phone was back then,” his daughter said, a smug expression on her face.

“Shut the mouth, Nina,” he retorted. Then looking at Loupe he shrugged and said in a whisper, “She’s right. We didn’t even have indoor plumbing.”  She giggled.

Yes, life in America was vastly different than where they came from. Was it better? Depends on who you ask.

“What’s with this pine tree and that crazy fat guy?” Hector said grimacing. “We used to have palm trees and Los Tres Reyes, The Three Kings. We used to put out grass and bowls of water for their camels not cookies for some burglar coming down a chimney. And they didn’t bring presents on Christmas day. Baby Jesus didn’t get presents on his birthday. It took the kings some time to find him, you know.”

 “Well, Santa and the tree are  German Christmas traditions,” Loupe explained.

“Oh, yeah? So, when they going to try some Dominican traditions around here?” Carlos interjected.

“When Sammy Sosa becomes the US president, Vladimir Gurerro is Secretary of state and Jose Reyes is Chief Justice,” Hector said making the entire room erupt with laughter.

Loupe listened silently and wondered how much more grumbling she’d hear about the sacrilegious ways of Americans and their awful influence on their kin when they all discovered she was pregnant by a Gringo. Bad enough she was dating one, they’d say but this?

“They’ll string me up in the nearest mango tree,” Billy had told her anxiously just days ago when the pregnancy was confirmed. “We gotta elope now!”

“Hey, it’s their fault we didn’t get married first. We’d almost be celebrating our first anniversary if we hadn’t listened to them. And your parents were no better. I’m tired of listening to them. If they wanted me to marry a Dominican they shouldn’t have brought me to America,” Loupe snapped.

Billy hugged her. “I love my little Dominican rebel,” he said.

Life in a this country had its challenges, some interesting results and endless possibilities. Loupe and all her family, despite some grumbling, knew this and loved every bit of it, even cell phones you can take pictures with, fat burglars in red suits and tiny players of dreadful music. 

Feliz Navidad! That's Merry Christmas for you gringos! ;-)