I’ve recently discovered a fascinating blog written by a woman in Cuba. She had some interesting stories to tell about the three kings. Let me translate:

“Last year Cuban newspapers strongly criticized the rebirth of the “consumerist” tradition of the three kings. They described the multitudes that, for days, packed the toy stores that took convertible pesos (the currency for those who get funds from outside Cuba — Tim), and they attacked the social differences generated by this practice. This January the solution the authorities found to avoid the “excess expenses” and the boasts of consumption, they have not allowed new and interesting toys to go on sale. Still, parents haven’t stopped buying and have grabbed up all the water pistols and swords made in China.

For me, born in the 70s, the kings came differently. They came in July and weren’t called Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar; instead they were the three categories of available toys: basic, non-basic and additional. My mother took us to stand in line the day before. The wait was a long process of frustrations, watching how they ran out of the nicest dolls, until — getting to the counter — we had to buy a carpentry set or plastic feather duster. Still, in my family we continued calling that “el día de los reyes magos” and upon remembering it weeks later, I remembered the sleigh, pictured the camels and spotted the crowns.

Traditions have the capacity of hiding when they are forbidden. They turn into myth and parents pass them on to their children in whispers. Nothing is as absurd as wanting to eradicate that the makes up society’s stock of fantasy. That’s why today, twenty years after the last toy I got “by the book,” I gave myself a chocolate. It smelled of desert, manger and baby.”

The Wall Street Journal wrote about this author, Yoani Sanchez. When I think of what she risks to write what she does, I feel honored to get to read her words. I hope they give you a bit of insight into how others live.