Thanksgiving Day In Puerto Rico

Thanks­giv­ing Day is a hol­i­day in Puer­to Rico.  But it has very lit­tle to do with Pil­grims and Indi­ans.  It’s a day for shar­ing with fam­i­ly and friends, eat­ing lots of deli­cious food, hav­ing a few drinks (some­times too many), putting up a tree and kick­ing off the Christ­mas season.

That’s right!  Christ­mas in Puer­to Rico starts on Thanks­giv­ing Day and it extends all the way to the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas on the third week­end of Jan­u­ary.  Some would even argue that they go on even longer, going through “las octavi­tas— and end­ing on “el día de la can­de­lar­ia” (Can­dle­mas Day), Feb­ru­ary 2nd.  How­ev­er, I’ll stick to the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fiestas.

But enough about Christ­mas.  How did Puer­to Rico —a Latin Amer­i­can coun­try by any def­i­n­i­tion— end up cel­e­brat­ing a true Amer­i­can hol­i­day like Thanks­giv­ing Day?  Well, it all start­ed in 1898, when the Unit­ed States invad­ed the Island.

Back then Puer­to Rico had recent­ly been declared a Span­ish province and Puer­to Ricans were actu­al­ly Span­ish sub­jects.  Christ­mas start­ed on Decem­ber 24 (Christ­mas Eve) and end­ed on Jan­u­ary 6th.  And the most impor­tant day dur­ing that peri­od was Jan­u­ary 6, “el día de los Tres San­tos Reyes (Three Kings Days).

With the pass­ing of time Puer­to Rico has absorbed many aspects of Amer­i­can cul­ture and —believe it or not— Amer­i­cans have also been influ­enced in many ways by Puer­to Ricans.

Thanks­giv­ing Day in Puer­to Rico is the per­fect exam­ple of a “puer­tor­i­can­ized” Amer­i­can hol­i­day.  In most cas­es Puer­to Ricans like their turkey oven roast­ed, but that’s where the sim­i­lar­i­ty ends.  The sea­son­ing is most­ly gar­lic, oregano, salt and pep­per.  But the stuff­ing, Mmm­m­m­m­mm can be “plan­tain or casa­ba mofon­go” (mashed green plan­tains or casa­ba) or even “fried ripe plan­tains” mashed to perfection.

Oth­ers do away with the turkey alto­geth­er and go for pork roast, chick­en or a vari­ety of hams.

Then come the trim­mings.  Some peo­ple like their turkey with pota­to sal­ad and yams.  Noth­ing new there.  But oth­ers pre­fer “arroz con gan­dures” (rice with pigeon peas and lit­tle chunks of ham) or  “arroz con lon­ga­ni­za” (rice with pork sausage).

And the dessert?  Yum… instead of the usu­al pump­kin or apple pie Puer­to Ricans pack on the calo­ries with “tem­bleque” (coconut pud­ding) or “arroz con dulce” (rice pudding).

Tem­bleque (Coconut Pudding)

And in the drink­ing depart­ment?  Every­thing, from beer to hard liquor, includ­ing Puer­to Rico’s own “coquito” (a local con­coc­tion made of coconut milk, boot­leg rum “ron caña”, and a dash of cin­na­mon).  Some peo­ple even drop in a cou­ple of eggs for good measure.

Then they kick back, put on some music, and gath­er around the domi­no table.

As the day comes to an end many fam­i­lies pull out the Christ­mas orna­ments and start dec­o­rat­ing the tree.  From that moment on it’s offi­cial­ly Christ­mas sea­son, which on the Island means lots of eat­ing, lots of drink­ing, lots of par­ties and around ten extra pounds to get rid of in Jan­u­ary.  Isn’t it great?

Arroz con dulce (Rice Pudding)

One tra­di­tion that has slow­ly been lost with the pass­ing of time has been the “par­ran­da”.  A “par­ran­da” was a group of instru­ment tot­ing fam­i­ly and friends that got togeth­er dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son to vis­it friends and rel­a­tives late at night and wake them to Christ­mas tunes.  Every time they waked up a new fam­i­ly they would add them to the group and go on to addi­tion­al homes.

When I was a young man, back in the sev­en­ties, I would go on my first “par­ran­da” on Thanks­giv­ing night and con­tin­ue through Fri­day and Sat­ur­day night.

Today that would be very dif­fi­cult and prob­a­bly dan­ger­ous.  With the ris­ing crime wave and gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties pop­ping up every­where, “par­ran­das” have slow­ly but steadi­ly lost their popularity.

On Fri­day morn­ing many Puer­to Ricans stay home or go out on a Black Fri­day shop­ping spree (anoth­er Amer­i­can influence).

Final­ly, Puer­to Ricans are a very gre­gar­i­ous peo­ple.  A typ­i­cal fam­i­ly gath­er­ing, espe­cial­ly in the small­er towns of the Island, can bring togeth­er 20, 30 or even more rel­a­tives.  In fact, just two weeks ago, one of my wife’s cousins vis­it­ed the Island and the lit­tle fam­i­ly gath­er­ing went well over 50 patrons.

I guess you could say that it was sort of a dry run for the upcom­ing Christ­mas sea­son, although there was noth­ing “dry” about it.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2013,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
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