Holiday Gifts And The Soup Nazi From Seinfeld

Ah, the holidays. A time for friends, food, gifts and … houseguests from hell.

They say you will keep attracting the same people and situations into your life until you have learned the lessons they bring. Well, for the past three years, I have been attracting a family of four very messy people for Christmas.

These folks love going home for the holidays - my home.

Their main purpose in life seems to be to clutter up my space, eat me out of house and home and lead me into the comforting arms of the worm at the bottom of the Cuervo bottle.

OK, I admit it. I love a clean, clutter-free house. But even the world’s greatest pack rat would swear off cheese if he scampered into a room where these people had been. For one week each December, my home in Miramar, Florida is transformed into the Messy Muddle in Miramar.

To make things even jollier, I’m a Gemini. According to my astrological sign, I have a split personality. Now, for the most part, I’m sweet, loving and cordial. But one yank on my chain too many and I start to resemble the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.

When this sudden shift in my persona occurs, I say my evil twin is coming out to play. You should also know that I’m a tad bit passive aggressive. I may not say anything to you, but one look in your direction and you know exactly what I’m trying to tell you.

So, when my houseguests do something kind and jovial - like say use the decorative Christmas towels to wipe leftover chicken parts off the kitchen counter - I smile, open the cabinet under the sink (gently enough to rip off the doors) and slam a roll of paper towels on the counter while shooting death daggers from my eyes in every which way.

And speaking of towels, my friends have a lovely habit of throwing used bath towels on the floor so the virtual maid (who looks a lot like me) can pick them up, wash them and deliver them neatly folded back into their kingdom of clutter.


Their favorite game is ‘let’s leave the garage door open so the dog can run away and we can watch our hosts chase her down the block.’

"You’re so mean to our friends," my partner says to me year after year.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I respond.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why do I keep inviting these people to my home if they’re such a problem? See, that’s the thing. I don’t. They invite themselves. And by the time I’m done making subtle excuses as to why they shouldn’t visit, their flight is landing at Miami International Airport.

This year, as I counted down the days until their arrival, the thought that you attract the same people into your life until you accept the gift their lessons have to bring kept popping into my mind. So, I decided that once and for all, I was going to open whatever gift these people were offering me and re-gift it to someone else next year.

And that’s when my houseguests changed. In reality, however, they were still the same as they’d been in the past. Within the first hour after they arrived, my garage door got stuck, the toilet in the guest bedroom wouldn’t flush and the baby Jesus in my Christmas manger had a look of horror on his face after he was knocked off the table where I had set up the stable.

But for some reason, it no longer seemed so bad.

Instead of expecting them to change, I had changed my attitude toward them. And that shift in attitude allowed me to open the gift they’d been offering me all these years … acceptance.

And so, now that I’ve learned the lesson they’ve been trying to teach me, next year they get to teach it to someone else.

But just in case, I won’t be checking my e-mail from Nov. till January.

Got Pig?

Christmas is a time of giving. It's a time when Santa Claus rides his sleigh through the snow to deliver toys and good will to all the little children around the world.

It's sounds so sweet and innocent. But my earliest Christmas memories have nothing to do with Santa Claus and snow. You see, for the first three years of my life, Christmas was about palm trees, beaches, strange noises in the garage and eating the family pet.

I was 3 years old when my parents brought home "un lechonsito" (a little piggy) to raise in our back yard in Cuba. He was the ugliest thing you've ever seen, but I quickly adopted him as the family pet. During the day, he roamed the yard eating -- well -- everything. And at night I knew better than to go into the garage because that's where my little friend slept after a long day of lounging in the Caribbean sun.

Little did I know that in the Cuban tradition, my pet was soon destined to be dinner. My mother still tells the story, 43 years later, of how I walked up to the table, recognized who we were having for dinner and announced: "Mami, se me quito el hambre." (Mom, I'm suddenly not hungry anymore).

Almost one year to the day after that meal, my family and I left Cuba and moved to New York. Luckily, raising live pigs in the brownstones of Brooklyn was frowned upon. So, we had to settle for store-bought lechon (pork). And it has remained the main staple of our 'Noche Buena' dinner throughout the years.

As every Cuban knows, the true meaning of Christmas has little to do with good will toward your fellow man. But it has everything to do with recovering from overindulging in "the other white meat" the night before. In fact, before the meal is served, guests gather around the roasted pork and fight over who gets to eat the skin. The crunchier the better.

Frijoles negros (black beans), rice, yucca (looks like a potato but tastes like nothing) smothered with enough garlic to stop a freight train in its tracks, salad and Cuban bread round off the main course.
That's followed by turrones (sweet candy-like stuff that goes straight to your hips) and cafe Cubano (rocket fuel in a thimble).

Noche Buena is celebrated on Dec. 24. The literal translation is Good Night or Holy night.
The tradition dictates that after dinner, we round up the family and head to midnight mass. Unfortunately, this coincides with the exact time of the pig's revenge. Let's just say that God hears a lot of porcelain prayers that night.

Despite the fact that my earliest memories of Christmas should have led to years of therapy, from year to year I hope and pray that the Christmases of the present can live up to the memories I carry in my heart of Christmases past. And even though the objective eye of the journalist in me pokes fun at my Cuban traditions, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without them.

Food and family are the foundations of tradition. Whether your idea of a holiday meal includes real pork or vegetarian soy pork substitute, remember that food is the glue that keeps people together this time of year and helps create new traditions for future generations.

So, this holiday season, eat and let eat ... just keep the family pet under the table, not on it.