My Christmases, generally speaking, have been pretty normal. Eating hallacas, pan de jamón, dulce de lechosa, drinking ponche crema, chicha andina, and basically eating nonstop. One tradition in my family, when the bells rang at midnight—both on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve—was going out to visit relatives and neighbors. A perfect excuse to eat even more and drink like Cossacks.

But there was a time when things were… very particular. That was when I was first the boyfriend and later the husband of the mother of my eldest son. Being a good, hopeless romantic, when Christmas was approaching, I would take my wife to her mother’s house so we could spend a few days there and help with the preparation of the chicken, the pork leg, the panes de jamón, and, of course, the hallacas. When you're in love, you do each kind of madness that—well—better not even tell you.

I was married for eight years, plus two years of dating; almost ten years helping with the preparations. The first time they “initiated” me with the job of strangling the chicken. That moment I’ve never been able to forget: I spun the poor chicken around, holding it by the neck, then tried squeezing it, and the damn thing just wouldn’t die, until with one pull I pulled its body one way and its head the other. My God, I didn’t know I had such brute strength; I ripped its head off in one go. No, no, no, I don’t want to remember that… I think I still need therapy because of that little task.

The following year, I asked not to do anything to the chicken, and I got stuck with the job I could never escape: cleaning the hallaca leaves. What an annoying job. It would be easy if they were just a few leaves, but the dear mother-in-law insisted on making hallacas for a battalion of starving soldiers. But that wasn’t even the darkest part of the job.

Every year I washed leaves, and every year I saw everyone else helping—those kneading the dough, those making the stew, the salad person, everybody—being given bites of everything: stew, meat, bread, olives… everyone got a sip of wine or whisky or beer… and this blond guy? Nothing. Not even a crumb.

When I tried to steal a piece of meat or an olive, there she was: the mother-in-law, standing like a sergeant with that dark tone, denying me my share. If I went to grab a beer, she wouldn’t let me because I had to finish the job; if I managed to finish washing the leaves, they still wouldn’t let me grab anything because then they’d assign me to tie the hallacas. And that was the same thing: no eating, no drinking, no standing up until the job was done.
And that’s how my Christmases—or my tortures—went with that diabolical presence.

Later, I got married again, and they invited me to make hallacas. That day, my stomach suddenly hurt, I pretended to be sick, entered a catatonic state—no talking, no looking, nothing—and then they would leave me alone at home, happy as could be.

Then I married again—because apparently I don’t learn—but that time I made sure there was no mother-in-law in the picture. That was better, but everything I earned with my hard work had to go into the hallacas and all the food, plus the decorations, and I never had anything left, not even for a sour drink.

Now to buy me my ham bread, buy me a badly made hallaca, and my Whiskey. Now that I bought my ham bread, I bought a badly made hallaca and my whiskey. That's what I did last year, ... but now that I remember, the hallaca gave me diarrhea, the ham bread gave me heartburn, and the whiskey was adulterated.

I think there’s a Grinch out there messing with me.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas filled with love and lots of food that doesn’t invite Mrs. Dolores Fuertes de Barriga (Mrs. Strong Stomach Ache) to drop by.