Good evening dear readers, listeners, followers and all aficionados de la musica Cubana!

The blog posts for tonight and for next week will be kind of special;
The blog celebrates its 3rd birthday, today is Christmas day, and next Friday will be the 1st day of 2016!

So, for today we shall have a Christmas special, Cuban style!

Christmas is celebrated all over the world, and is quite the party when in comes to Cuba (as usual 🙂 ).
As always, Cuban holidays are known for great quantities of food & drink, music and dancing, all in a great gathering of friends and family.
In Cuba Christmas eve is called “la Noche Buena”, the good night.
Christmas day is a day of grand family gatherings and reunions, decorating, gift giving, and of course, a mutual many hour long cooking session!

In Cuba the main dish for “cena de navidad” is el puerco asado, or lechon asado (respectively, the roasted pig and the roasted suckling pig).
During the day before Christmas eve, a pig is selected, slaughtered, cleaned and placed in a special marinade for a day. It is roasted by many family members at the backyard the next day.
Other typical dishes at the table include moros y cristianos, which is a dish of seasoned black beans on a plate of white rice, mariquitas, fried platano slices in mojo sauce, mojito and cider to drink and pudin diplomatico (pudding) or rum cake for desert.

As mentioned, there’s no Cuban holiday without some great music!
So, tonight we can enjoy a few nice festive holiday songs of traditional Cuban musical genres such as Son, Bolero, Mambo and Son Montuno!

Feliz Navidad!