El Wiwichu

There's so much that I love about the holidays. My earliest Christmas memories are all filled with abundance and magic.

I think one of my favorites happened as we were learning the language and the customs of our new adopted country. Our default greeting was always "Feliz Navidad." But here in the U.S. things were a little different.

Our Cuban tongues that could so easily roll R's into oblivion were a challenged by the Christmas greetings we heard around us.

Merry Christmas came out sounding more like, "Meri Cree-mah," all Cuban accented, broken and abrubt syllables. And then there were the new songs we were learning in school. (I started 1st grade here in the U.S. without speaking a word of English.)

Our favorite was something we called, "El Wiwichu."

That's right. It goes something like this:

"Wiwichu ah Meri Chree-mah, Wiwichu ah Meri Cree-mah, Wiwichu ah Meri Cree-mah. Ana hapi niu yiah."

As I send out my Christmas cards, I can't help but think of El Wiwichu.

And it makes me smile.

Merry Christmas, my friends.

"Senk Got Ees Fraidei" (read in Spanglish, please)

My mom, Luza, who is 97 is still constantly reading and learning.

She just recently learned that TGIF meant "Thank God it's Friday." She liked that. A lot.

So every Friday when she comes over here, she starts the weekend with her version, which sounds more like:

"Senk yu, Lort, eet ees Fraidei!" (But that's not important right now.)

Here's Luza wishing you a Happy Friday. (Or is it, "Fraidei....?")

Japi Fraidei! from my mom and the rest of my big, fat, Cuban family. =D