Banned for Decades, Christmas Returns to Cuba
By Yoani Sanchez, Huffington Post Latino Voices
Tiny plastic trees peek out here and there, with garlands saved from other years and a wire star at the top. Superb conifers with every little detail, placed in the lobby of some grand hotel or in the living rooms of residences in Miramar. Lights, colors, melodies that play over and over without end.
On a street in Nuevo Vedado neighbors compete to see who can most-strikingly decorate their 
balcony railings or garden hedges. But there is also house after house, thousands of them, without a single detail relating to this December holiday. Perhaps because of atheism, or for lack of resources, or simply apathy towards the celebration.”Celebrate what?” many would say if asked.
This Christmas, self-employed workers have made the year-end festivities their own. In the food stalls, the tiny rooms where trinkets are sold, and the private restaurants in Havana, there is a determination to decorate the spaces with images of Santa Claus, glass balls and twinkling lights. An explosion of colors and carols in the private service sector marks a big difference from the State-run counterpart. As if the excess of details and ornamentation were another way to distance themselves from the…
This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
Yoani Sanchez, a University of Havana graduate in philology, emigrated to Switzerland in 2002, to build a new life for herself and her family. Two years later, she decided to return Cuba, promising herself to live there as a free person. Her blog Generation Y is an expression of this promise. Yoani calls her blog ‘an exercise in cowardice’ that allows her to say what is forbidden in the public square. It reaches readers around the world in over twenty languages. Yoani’s new book in English, Havana Real, is now available for pre-order here. Time magazine listed her as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2008.
[Photo courtesy Huffington Post Latino Voices]