I'm sooo ready.On New Year's Eve, at the stroke of midnight, we Cubans are BUSY. When the clock strikes 12 we:quickly eat 12 grapes - one for each month of the past year. wash these down with sparkling cider to celebrate the end of the old year. throw a bucket of water out the front door to symbolize getting rid of all the bad juju ...
Archives for December 2008
The Man Child
I have some well-chosen adjectives that describe my kids. What I happen to love about the following list of adjectives is that they were used by other people: Aunts, cousins, teachers, friends, grandparents, neighbors, tween-girls - to describe my son, Jonathan. I know this because I have been "collecting" them for the past few ...
Preparing for New Year’s Eve
Because Jonathan's birthday falls on practically the last day of the year, we've decided to celebrate his birthday with a New Year's Eve party. Actually, there will be a murder. ;-) It's called Death of the Blue Shadow. In which a group of Superheroes comes together at a convention. (oooh, this is right up ...
Making Christmas
"Making Christmas" is usually the mom's job. At least it's always that way at my house (I'm guessing it's that way in most homes). I do a lot of stuff anyway, but in December I kick it up to Warp Nine. =D This year I was especially busy because I took the time to make some special homemade gifts: 1) ...
Hay que lio!
I'm bossy.I won't deny it.But I think I have some good ideas and being bossy helps get my people to cooperate. ;-) And I'm cognizant most of the year that we will eventually be putting together a video to entertain the family at Christmas. So when there's any kind of reunion (like this one in Miami this year), I ...
“Open me first!”
Back in the day, Kodak had a genius ad campaign for their sweetly priced Instamatic cameras. From around the early 60's and into the 70's their pre-Christmas ads would say something about marking the wrapped camera with a tag that said "Open me first!" Serious genius. So, you're probably thinking that this ...
Pickles and Madness – an enduring Christmas tradition
I'm Cuban.I grew up celebrating Noche Buena. On December 24th we would rise early to decorate the house and put up the Christmas tree while the pig slowly cooked in its garlicky goodness all day long until we kids were driven mad from hunger and completely ravenous by the traditionally late dinner hour, but that's not important right ...
The Christmas Video
One of the gifts we give our family for Christmas each year is a movie. My daughter, Amy Kikita studied film for years and is brilliant when it comes to movie-making and film-editing. The process is neither quick nor easy. We spend hours, days, and weeks listening to music and looking at pictures and watching video footage of old home ...
Andrew Lloyd Weber enters the Cucufate Olympics
Kikita here. A few years ago Mami started a new tradition with Lucy and me. Every December we would go to the theater. We've seen "White Christmas", and the musical version of "It's a Wonderful Life" just to name a few. So this year Mami asked me if I'd be interested in seeing "Jesus Christ Superstar." I ...
Because we are an equal-opportunity family…
My nephew's wife is Jewish. Which I think makes their kids Jubans. =D And so they celebrate this season (quite cleverly) with both a Christmas tree and a Menorah. We will be going to the home of Jewish friends tonight to celebrate the first night of Hanukah. (Or is it spelled Chanukah? Or Hanukkah? Not really sure, but ...
