Christmas was never a big deal at my house. For Cuban kids, the presents don’t come from Santa, they’re brought by the Three Wise Men on Epiphany, in January. The grown-ups pigged out on open-pit roast pork on Christmas Eve day and usually went dancing that night, and if they were so inclined, dragged themselves to La Misa del Gallo (Rooster Mass) at sunrise on Christmas Day. Even Catholic Cubans aren’t too devout, that’s usually the only Mass they go to all year. Not that it mattered all that much, we were an agnostic, non-denominational household. There were no religious ceremonies or rituals involved, I never believed in the Wise Men and I gave up on Santa Claus before I was five. But of course, there are presents. And presents don’t mean much without the tree. So we got a tree, I guess Mom realized how much it meant to kids. I’m glad she did.

My mom was a secretary, and in those days, before audio tape, dictation was recorded for later typing on a device called a Dictaphone. The message was analog-engraved by the device as a continuous groove on a circular plastic belt, or ribbon, about a foot long and four inches wide. The ribbons were continuous, seamlessly joined to form a circular band of translucent, flexible red or blue Lexan. Mom used to bring these home from work, cut them into 1/2″ wide bands, and staple them together into rosette patterns as decorative ribbons for gift wrapping. They looked really classy, and were quite distinctive. Everybody wanted to know what they were, and where Mom got them.

We got a tree, and it was duly decorated with the technology available at the time. The colored light bulbs were wired together in series, so if one burned out they all went out; you had to replace each one until you found the bad one. It was part of the Christmas ritual, like untangling all the wiring and decorations when the tree was being set up. There were also new-fangled bulbs that had a colored liquid in them that bubbled after the power was on, giving them an interesting appearance. Reportedly, this fluid was highly poisonous, although I realize now this was just one of Mom’s fibs designed to make me extra careful and not break any. All the bulbs could be fitted with little metal collars that reflected the light, the bulbs were clipped to branches of the tree, and the wire for each bulb string carefully concealed in the branches.

Now that I think about it, the whole thing was a safety hazard. The bulbs got very hot (they could burn you if you brushed up against them), and the needles from the tree soon got very dry–they fell from the branches in piles and the area round the tree had to be swept up several times a day. It was clear to me, even as a kid, the damn thing was a fire hazard, and we had to unplug it whenever we weren’t actually in the living room keeping an eye on it.

The decorations were all thin glass, and very fragile, especially the colored reflecting spheres that were so pretty to look at, but that could give you a nasty cut if they were handled too roughly. The tinsel was strips of aluminum foil, but the “angel hair” was spun glass, probably extremely dangerous if any found its way into your eyes. Topping it all off at the peak of the tree was a glass ball, a spire, a porcelain star or an angel. It really was quite gorgeous. I remember the lights, the colors, the reflections, the sparkle, and that wonderful smell of pine and hot glass and electricity. It smelled like Christmas.