Nochebuena. Cubans. Photo Booth. (Pachanga!)

My home, as I've told you before, is freakishly small cottage-like.

Accomodating my big, fat, Cuban family for Nochebuena takes quite a bit of planning and hard work and a little bit of creativity. Actually, a LOT of creativity.

My family is full of extroverted, noisy people. (Hello? Cubans!) They are easy conversationalists and will most always cooperate with whatever creative suggestions get thrown their way. (This quality is what makes our yearly Christmas videos so compelling.)

But to be honest, hosting a big party like this in our freakishly small cottage-like home requires that we also do some "crowd control." (AKA: have some activities planned.)

This year, we had a Photo Booth. (I know. Genius, right?) I'd gotten the idea from a few blog events I've attended this year. The Photo Booths were always a hit.

Me to my (very creative) kids: "We need to do a Photo Booth for Nochebuena."

Lucy: "Let's ask Mr. G (our favorite professional photographer and awesome neighbor) for help."

Our Awesome Professional Photographer Neighbor, Raphael, let us borrow a backdrop and a remote flash and lights and the whole set-up for The Great Nochebuena Photo Booth of 2010.

We moved all the furniture out of the way in Jonathan's room and voila! Instant Photo Booth!

I wanted to make sure that everyone had their photos taken with my mom, Luza.

And that each family would be well represented.

I insisted that the couples jump in.

"Yes, of course you can bring the dog."

I suggested generational pictures.

And Lucy had the great eye for the crazy kid pics. (Do not miss Ben's Clip-on Tie of Awesomeness.)

We made sure to get the parents with each individual child. (This is probably because of some deep, psychological wounding I received because I was the youngest and there are no pictures of just me with my parents, but that's really a conversation I'll have to save for my therapist.)

And of course, there were the siblings.

And my men. (Missed you, Adam!)

The cousins got a little crazy.

And of course, we had to take the Classic Sister Picture of 2010. (Suitable for framing, no?)

Some of the photos were out of focus and a little goofy.....which made them absolutely Picture Perfect.

Yes, that's me. Right up front. With the smug self-satisfied grin on my face. (And gift wrapping ribbon in my hair, but that's not important right now.) =D

Welcome, Christmas!

The tables are already set.

The smell of roast pork is intoxicating.

The gifts are wrapped and tagged.

The creme de vie is already flowing.

The girls made a run to Porto's Bakery this morning for some REAL CUBAN BREAD (Thank you, God!), croquetas, pastelitos and Cuban tamales.

We are ready for Nochebuena.

Everyone is working hard around here, but they seem to be happier. There's already a lot of laughter in spite of the stress of preparing to host 24 noisy, hungry Cubans.

I hope your Christmas is wonderful, too.

So, from my big, fat, Cuban family to yours: Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!

Let the celebrations begin!

Cheaters Lechón Asado (don't judge me.)

It's raining like mad here in So Cal. And we live in The Bubble (aka. The O.C.). And Nochebuena falls on a Friday. And the men-folk are all working. What does this mean?

It means that there will be no Cuban Caja China Pig Roasting for us. (*insert sad face here*)

Of course, this does not mean that we won't have our lechóncito. We are, after all, self-respecting Cubans. Going without lechón on Nochebuena is not an option.

It just means we'll cheat a little. ;-)

Super Garlicky Lechón Asado (In the crockpot. I know. Shut up.)

• 2 Tbsp. Olive oil
• 1 1/2 lbs. Pork loin chops – the big, thick ones
• 2 cups Mojo Criollo*
• 1 white onion – sliced into rings
• 1 tsp. Parsley

1. Stab each of the chops two or three times and brown them quickly in the olive oil.
2. Put them in a crockpot. Cover with the mojo and the onion slices and sprinkle with parsley.
   Cook on high for 4-5 hours. Or on low for 6-8 hours.
3. For added Cuban tastiness: Double the Mojo recipe and after the pork is cooked, pull it apart just a bit - it should be very tender - then, move it into a roasting pan.
4. Pour mojo over the pork and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Serve with black beans and white rice.

*Mojo Criollo
You can use the mojo that comes in a bottle, or make your own.
Here’s my recipe.

• 20 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Coarse-ground Pepper
• 2 tsp. Oregano
• 1 ¾ cups bitter orange juice
• ¼ cup white vinegar

1. Using a mortar and pestle, mash together the garlic, salt, pepper and oregano to make a paste.
2. Stir in the orange juice and vinegar.

They'll never know the difference. =D

Buen Provecho!

The Great Cucufate

Coming soon to a Cuban household near you...

Brought to you by the genius of iMovie & iLife '10. (No, they're not paying me for this. But they totally should, right?)

Feliz Navidad!

Beauty and The Grid

When Amy was about 12, we had the opportunity to see Beauty and the Beast (the stage show) at the Music Center in Los Angeles. (At that time, Lucy was only 2, but that's not important right now.)

I remember the show being so breathtakingly beautiful. And I remember my surprise that the Disney animated film could translate so perfectly to the stage.

As the years passed, it turns out that My Lucy loved Beauty and the Beast. She could always relate more to Belle, the plucky, well-read heroine than to any of the other save-me-from-my-sad-life-and-take-me-to-your-castle Disney princesses.

It was around Lucy's adolescence that Disney locked Beauty away in The Vault. And it was only this year that the dvd and the stage show were resurrected.

At Christmastime, it's become our tradition to do a Girls At The Theater Night. Read about that here and here. Beauty and the Beast came to our local venue, The Orange County Performing Arts Center in November.

But we were crazy-busy in November.

Amy Kikita: "Mom, we have to take Lucy to Beauty and the Beast. Make it happen."

Me: "Aaah! We're going on a cruise, it's Thanksgiving, she's leaving for a week, she has school until really late, umm...Excuse #263.... FINE."

Here we are at the Center with the stage (see the Rose?) behind us.

Obviously we pulled it off, but it was November. And it seemed anti-climactic to have already been to the theater so far before Christmas. (I'm one of those people who waits to decorate my home for Christmas until about mid-December, that explanation can be found here.)

Lucy was beyond satisfied and deliriously happy that we finally saw the stage production of Beauty and the Beast. The show was just as wonderful as I remembered. (Win!)

So last week, I was invited to the premiere of the film, Tron:Legacy. It was playing at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

My first thought was that for sure the boys would love it....but I didn't count on Lucy to be as excited to see it as well.

But, I was very mistaken.

First, it was already appealing because it involved a Road Trip to Hollywood.

Always fun, but much more so during the holidays with all the glitzy, you're-on-Hollywood-Blvd.-star decorations.

And of course, you never know who or what you will encounter on the Walk of Fame.

Jon and his new friend, Marilyn. ;-)

"The Duck has a star. Who knew?"

And so it was that we (Eric, Lucy and Jonathan and I) got to experience the Uber-Geeky Awesomeness that is Tron:Legacy in 3D.

It was so much fun because:

1. Eric and I were both already old-school-1982-Tron fans, so it's always cool to get to share that sort of thing with the kids.
2. Jeff Bridges. (Hello...?)
3. We happen to enjoy the show Chuck, in which uber-nerd main character Chuck has a classic Tron poster on his wall. They were finally able to relate to it. =D

Lucy and Jon prepare to Enter The Grid of Awesomeness.

It makes me happy to know that my very feminine Girly-girl can also hold her own with the Uber-Geeks.

(The apple does not fall far....)

The movie, by the way, was phenomenal in every way. The modern story stands alone while providing just enough nostalgia to keep us old-timers satisfied.  And did I mention Jeff Bridges? (Hello...?)

Everyone's Invited!

I can't remember when this started, but as long as I remember we have been making invitations for our Nochebuena Celebration on December the 24th.

It's always the same people (with a few added guests). They all know when and where the party is because we have been discussing it for weeks. And, Duh! We do this every, single year. But still, the invitation must be sent out.

And of course, because I can't just go to the store and buy a cute invitation, because that would be way too easy. I always end up playing a game of "One Up" with myself. As in "What did I do last year?" (This is last year's invitation.) I have to go "One Up" from that and take it to the next level. (Please don't ask about the logic of this. There obviously is none.)

So, here's this year's NocheBuena invitation. (drum roll please.....)

It's a long tag. The gift-giving directions are on the back and there's a snowflake attached. (I am just feeling the snowflake love this year, but that's not important right now.) It's got a red velvet ribbon, making it suitable for hanging on the nearest Christmas tree.

If you decide to come, just please remember to RSVP. We will be happy to move some furniture around, set an extra place and make room just for you. =D

Do you send invitations? Phone calls? Emails? Texts? Tell me.

Just in case you were curious, here are our invitations from 2006, and 2007.

And because I'm still in the giving mood, there are some cute Spanglish Gift Tags I created that are FREE for you to download over at the Tiki Tiki.

[Creative Notes: The tag itself is from Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals and it's called Remembering December. The scrolling typeface is called Mutlu Ornamental and the smaller curly print is appropriately called Santa's Sleigh. Both are from dafont.com. I inked the edges of the tag to give it some character.]

The Luza Gift

As you know, we Cubans celebrate Noche Buena on December the 24th.

In my family, December the 25th, or Christmas Day is the day we each celebrate with our individual families.

Usually, my oldest sister, Ofelia will take Luza (my 96 year old mom) with her to enjoy Christmas morning with her grandkids (my mom's great-grands).

Besides the traditional family celebrations, there's also the many and varied Christmas parties to attend.

In spite of all this madness, we also manage to add another small and informal party to our busy schedules. In attendance are just the girls. My sisters and their daughters and me and my daughters spend an evening noshing on cookies and creme de vie. The reason? It's the night we exchange gifts with my mom.

I know you're asking, "But, Marta, isn't your Noche Buena celebration just a week later? And won't you all be there?" The answers are yes and yes.

The reason we started The Luza Gift night is because we (sisters) usually chip in to get my mom some great gifts. And she usually gets a little something for each of us. But when the Noche-Buena-Crazy begins, there's no telling who got or who gave what to whom.

In the past, we've tried. Or I should say, I tried. I would try to make it an orderly "You give your gifts and then you and so on...."

But my family is Cuban. And noisy. An unruly. And impatient. And they tend to be command-resistant, too.

So, the more civilized Luza Gift night was established. My mom can open her gifts from us and enjoy her goodies and thank us properly. And we can do the same.

Her argument for doing the early exchange is that she wants to see our faces and she wants to make sure she knows who gave her the gift and that she can show the proper appreciation.

Secretly, I think she is just like a little kid and can't wait. ;-)

The Luza Gift from Marta Darby on Vimeo.

"Making Christmas?" or "Resolviendo"?

Our home is small. You could say it's freakishly small, but I prefer to call it cottage-like. (That makes it sound so much cuter.)

So hosting my big, fat, Cuban family for holidays is often a challenge. We have to move furniture around to make room for everyone. Can I just add right here that even though it's kind of a challenge, it's my absolute pleasure to have my house full of the noisy people that I love best.

In the past, my sister, Alina hosted Nochebuena. She had the largest home which made it easy to accommodate the small army that constitutes my immediate family. But last year she downsized and so the Cuban Christmas Eve defaulted to us.

Did I mention that our house is freakishly small cottage-like?

But, lucky for me, I'm married to Mr. Creative Guy. (I sometimes have a few good ideas myself, but that's not important right now.)

Challenge Number 1: I happen to like everyone to have a place at the table. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think everyone feels more at home when they have A Place. Plus, there is nothing that I love more than a beautifully set table.

Challenge Number 2: Place settings for 24, plus the kids' table. I like my tables to have a certain amount of uniformity. And yes, I do happen to have lovely white buffet dishes. If I were hosting a buffet... But this is Nochebuena I'm talking about. And I wanted to seat everyone. *Eric does face-palm*

I should add right here that I have amassed quite a nice collection of Christmas dishes over the years. I like our Christmas morning table nicely set (for the 6 of us) and Target has had some beautiful place settings in the past. (Have you started doing the math yet? You know what's coming next, right?)

We have managed to art direct the settings for enough of our kids' plays that we know a thing or two about creating a mood.

Mr. Creative Guy wrapped our Patio Cover in stage canvas. (See the 26 foot backdrop we painted for Lucy's Spring Musical here. We just happened to have lots of this stuff left over, but that's not important right now, either.) And he bought a square of carpet to cover the patio slab.

This room addition made it possible for us to seat 12 people, plus set up a drinks table. Genius.

Which then just leads us to the setting of the tables. This is where it got good....

I was able to set up Christmas Themed Tables. ("You did what??") I know. Shut up.

There was The Snowflake Table. So named for my (ancient!) red snowflake table cloth & napkins. I found a ton of these glittery snowflakes and hot glued them to old acrylic napkin rings. That table got gold chargers and the gold rimmed goblets. (The small shot glasses are for Creme de Vie....of course.)

The Rustic Reindeer Table got its name from the cute little metal reindeer holding the placecards. (Actually, I didn't name it. The people who ended up sitting here started calling themselves the Rustic Reindeers. The wine was flowing by then and everyone was getting creative....) I found the reindeer at Crate & Barrel. They were really ornaments, but I yanked off the string and called them placecard holders. No one was the wiser. (Certainly not after the wine started flowing, but that's not important right now, either....)

I already had the plates and the red glasses. The little cherry-jingle-bell napkin rings were from a long ago Nochebuena that my mom had done. I am so glad I inherited these. They just make me happy.

The Ornament Table is the next one. I love these dishes. They are simple and elegant and they just scream "Merry Christmas." Plus the red chargers look amazing under the red-rimmed plates. The placecard holders are little ornaments. Sadly, one broke the morning of the setup. Of course, being the hostess, it happened to be mine. Ooops. ;-) The gold-trimmed glasses have my parents' names on them and were from their 50th anniversary celebration. Again, happy to have inherited these.

The next table was The Poinsettia Table. These dishes look spectacular with crystal and those silver chargers. The white glasses with the red rims were another wonderful find.

What's fun about my home is that, besides being freakishly small cottage-like, it has white beadboard and red leather furniture. Almost like it was meant for Christmas celebrations.

Kids! I almost forgot....we have a Kids' Table, too. There are 7 great-grands. But only 5 were in attendance. We covered our coffee table which obviously worked best with the kid-size chairs. And provided an activity - in this case - cookie decorating. The basket held frosting and sprinkles and all of that kind of stuff. I added some noisemakers to their places. (Dollar bins are ideal for these sorts of things.)

I was quite pleased with the results. Instead of my house appearing freakishly small too cottage-like, it felt cozy and like it had 5 different neighborhoods.

I couldn't quite get over how serendipitously it all came together.

I know you're wondering... where in the world did we manage in this freakishly small cottage-like atmosphere, to put the Christmas tree?

I love my family. =D

Do you host your family for Nochebuena? How do you do it? Tell me.

The Christmas Card Photo Shoot of 2010

It will go down in family history as The Year We Hauled the Red Chair Down to the Park.

Here's how the whole thing went down:

Eric and I went on a pre-Thanksgiving cruise (on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, which I still have to write about, but that's not important right now). That very same (pre-Thanksgiving) weekend, my son, Adam and his girl, Stephanie came down from Redding.

Eric and I got home on Tuesday night. Adam and Steph were taking Lucy and Jon back to Redding with them on Wednesday. And they were driving so they had to leave relatively early in the day. Amy Kikita had to work but she didn't start until 11. And so, exhausted and bleary eyed, all of us managed to get ourselves out of bed because I wanted my Christmas Card Photo Shoot, please.

Our next door neighbor, Raphael (the amazing pro photographer) agreed to get up and shoot us. (That works on multiple levels...)

And because I didn't want us just sitting there being all "Hey, look-at-us-with-our-just-for-the-photo-shoot-Christmas-card-faces on," I insisted he attempt to get the Real Darbys.

Which is why we were NOT wearing coordinated outfits. We don't coordinate in real life, so no coordinated dressing for the photo shoot.

I had Adam and Jonathan haul one of our red leather chairs down to the park. That was quite fun for the neighbors. (Actually, I think they're used to the UDB* - *Unusual Darby Behavior.)

Adam got into it right away. Big red leather chair in the middle of the park? Let them talk.

Here are my men. I love this.

Then me with my girls. (My eyes were more swollen shut than usual, but whatever...)

Then Rafe did a few of the kids.

How cute are they? And then....the silliness began.

We couldn't help ourselves. It was too tempting.

We were having a blast, but none of them sang out and said "Christmas Card is me!"

Until we hauled the big red chair out into the middle of the street. That's when we really dominated the  neighborhood. These were pretty much the favorites. I liked the element of surprise it adds.

But we finally all agreed on one that represented us best.

Even with Jon melted, we felt like this was ....US!

Your thoughts? Do you have a favorite? Tell me.

Also, if you click over to TikiTiki, you'll see this same card on another post, we have a wonderful offer over there. One lucky Tiki Tiki reader will win a $50 gift certificate to Snapfish.com. It's a pretty sweet deal! Go now!

Lighting the Menorah and Spinning the Dreidel

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is the parties and celebrating with friends.

What's different is that not all of our friends do Christmas Trees and Nochebuena.

Tonight, my son will be wearing a yarmulke and my daughter will help light the menorah.

There will be a wonderful matzoh-ball soup made by a Genuine Jewish Grandma.

And for dessert we will be treated to the Amazing Chocolate Fountain of Doom. (That's what Jonathan calls it, but that's not important right now.)

After dinner, we will spin the dreidel. Guess who usually wins the pot? ;-)

I love celebrating special holidays with our Jewish friends. And they always go out of their way to make me feel at home.

Happy Hanukkah, mi gente! =D