There is some allusion, but not much, to Christmas in public decorations in Cuba at the end of the year, as can be seen by the bell painted at left in a Havana shop window. The text at right has nothing to do with Christmas. It celebrates “54 years of the (Cuban) revolution”. Cuban authorities reinstated Christmas as a holiday in 1997, shortly before a visit by Pope John Paul II, but celebrations remain largely out of sight.

By Isaac Risco


There is no end-of-year shopping madness for Christmas gifts in Cuba. There are hardly any Christmas decorations on the streets and no carols at all broadcast over the airwaves. There are no Father Christmas figures to be seen in public spots.
Christmas is a strictly private affair for Cubans.
For a different kind of Christmas with little or no public celebration Cuba might just be the only Spanish-speaking country with a predominantly Catholic population where one can find it.
Yuletide festivities at the end of the year are celebrated but because Cuba is officially the last communist regime in the Western hemisphere the government makes no big fuss about it.
One barely notices that Christmas is approaching in December and Christmas Eve is like any other night.
The streets of Havana remain in partial darkness and all one catches glimpses of are the cats — instead of carol singers or merrymakers — as in many other parts of the world.
People stroll through the streets of districts like Vedado, others chat or listen to music on the quay or “malecon,” Havana’s most famous spot for youth to hang out.  “The most interesting thing was how little Christmas presence there was,” said Vanessa, a 33-year-old Spanish woman who spent the Christmas holidays last year in Cuba with her Finnish boyfriend.
They chose Christmas on the island because both of them had vacation time.  “There were a few Christmas motifs, but of course, zero consumerism, zero publicity,” she said. “Really, you wouldn’t even have known it was Christmas,” she said. “Nobody even wished you a ‘Merry Christmas!’”
The birth of Christ is celebrated in Cuba in the privacy of people’s homes. Although never officially banned, Catholicism was for decades shunned in the socialist Cuba of Fidel Castro and Argentine revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara.
But in 1992, in the aftermath of the downfall of the Soviet Union, Cuba amended its constitution to erase the article that stipulated that the state was atheist. Since then, the Catholic Church has made some inroads in Cuban life and the government’s attitude to Christmas has softened.
“Starting in ’92, people began putting up religious decorations in their homes,” said Portuguese nun Teresa Vaz, 78, who first travelled to Cuba in 1985.
 “At that time you couldn’t even put up a Christmas tree,” she said. Vaz began living in Cuba permanently in 2001 and has observed the gradual change in attitudes toward religious practices on the island over the years.
The Catholics have set up a Nativity tableau with large figurines outside the cathedral in Old Havana but many other Catholic churches do not have such cribs. Vaz said that this is because of all those decades in which Catholicism was absent.
 “Some people can’t forget (the persecution of Catholics), and others have no religious training,” she said.
The practice of celebrating Christmas remained alive because many people did so quietly at home.
 “I have celebrated Christmas all of my life,” said Ines, a 66-year-old lay person who works at a Carmelite convent in Havana. Ines always marked the feast in the privacy of her home.
Not long after the 1959 socialist Revolution, Catholic festivities were erased from public calendars and many priests and other Catholic believers left the island in the early years of the Castro government because they were persecuted.
Christmas officially returned to Cuba in late 1997.
The government announced that it could be celebrated publicly in anticipation of a visit from Pope John Paul II in January 1998.
Although Cuba lacks the religious fervour of other Latin American countries many people do celebrate Christmas Eve with a special meal.
Christmas Eve dinner can include delicacies such as roast meat, cassava with gravy or the traditional Cuban dish of rice and black beans. Some families save up to buy expensive Spanish nougat or prepare cassava or sweet potato fritters. If there is a bit of extra money in the household, Cubans accompany their Christmas Eve dinner with wine.
Through the years Catholics continued to keep their faith secretly. State officials, for example, never went to a baptism at a church, for fear of losing their jobs.
Syncretism has also played a role in undermining Catholicism. For example, Catholicism has often merged with the Santeria or Yoruba religious rites and practices that have their origin among the Africans brought as slaves from Africa.
Currently about 60% of 11mn Cubans are Catholic. As a comparison, in Mexico, nearly 84% of 112mn people describe themselves as Catholics.
The Catholic hierarchy in Havana, led by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, has gained influence with Cuban authorities and successfully intervened in recent years, for example, to obtain the release of political prisoners. – DPA