Javier Morillo

My family's last Christmas in Germany in 1976 is etched in my memory as full of magic.

We were a Puerto Rican family living on a US Army base in Germany.

So I had not just Santa Claus and Christmas Day, but we also celebrated the German holiday of Day of St.

Nicholas on December 5th, where we did that by putting our boots out in front of the front door of our

second floor apartment and waited overnight to see if St.

Nicholas would fill it with candy if we'd been good or lumps of coal if we'd been bad.

It's very German.

Make kids very anxious to celebrate the birth of our Lord.

That year, my parents' friend, Mr. Galarza, also introduced me to Three Kings Day, the Epiphany.

And so that year, for the first time, I did what all Puerto Rican kids do.

I put under my bed a glass of water for the Three Kings to drink and a shoebox filled with grass for the camels.

A week before, Santa had gotten a much better deal with milk and cookies.

That year was our family's turn to host the big Puerto Rican Christmas party.

And what you should know about Puerto Ricans is that when we leave the island, wherever we are, we find each other.

Every Boricua in Deutschland was in our second floor apartment.

Mommy had prepared this great big feast of Puerto Rican food after arguing with German grocers over the right ingredients to make the food.

She made pasteles, the quintessential Christmas meal.

Pasteles, they look like tamales, but they taste very different.

They're not made of corn.

They are made from green bananas and tubers.