Casa Cristina
December 07th, 2009
Christmas interview with Cristina
In Cristina's native Cuba, the Christmas Holidays centered on family, friends and food. She now lives in Miami and is the host of the "Show de Cristina", winner of 12 Emmy® awards (and also the intellectual and creative visionary of the Casa Cristina™ home collection), but her way of thinking has not changed a bit. In fact, she keeps her family traditions by inviting her entire family to eat, dance and celebrate the traditional Christmas Eve party on December 24th.
What is your favorite Christmas memory?
- For me Christmas and New Year's parties are special moments for everyone, but for Marcos and me as a family, married for 23 years, they are very special because it is the only time of the year when I am not taping and I have three whole weeks when all the family comes to visit: we get together and we see each other's faces. So my siblings that live overseas, their kids, our grandkids and my daughter's husband's Italian parents who live in Jersey all get together during this time of the year and I thank God for having my kids with me in good health but, above all, for having the same friends for over thirty years. People always ask me: working on TV, is it difficult to have friends? It is not difficult for me because I have had the same friends forever and we all get together at my house at Christmastime and we always have fun and do a lot of dancing, so it's my time to have fun, to be Mati Saralegui and not Cristina.
What are your plans for Christmas this year?
- I am going to tell you something about a memory, one of the most incredible ones I have about Christmas. My mother died less than a year ago, so last Christmas was the last Christmas with my mother. This morning, while getting ready to come here, while getting made up by Miguel Ángel, who has been with me for a long time, we were laughing together because we were listening to the music of Donna Summer, and Miguel and I dance like crazy every time we hear Donna Summer, but there always used to be a third person that came to dance to Donna Summer's music with us: my mother. So, I spent the whole day remembering her.
What do you think makes a good gift?
- I think the most important thing for a gift to be good is for it to be useful. Sometimes people give things that you never use. A gift should be useful, so that the person will use it and it will remind them of you so that every time they see it they remember you. It is very important not to give someone something that has nothing to do with their family or themselves, and it shouldn't be just a passing fad, but something that they will want to keep for a lifetime. At Christmas, for example, I think that the most important thing about exchanging gifts in families is giving things that become memories themselves. Things to put on your tree... I still have a little bird that my daughter made when she was in second grade, out of white paper, and she put glitter on it and every year, that little bird is the first thing we take out and put on the tree. Except this year because she got married and now it is on her tree.
What was the most memorable gift you ever received?
- The one I liked the most is different than the most memorable one. The one I liked the most is a fabulous pearl necklace made of Baroque pearls, because I do not like anything perfect; they are imperfect like me and they are precious. I remember the first time I saw those pearls: I have very small ones on now, in my earrings. My friend Carolina Herrera had them on. I spent years thinking: how am I going to buy this necklace? One day, my husband showed up with a Carolina Herrera pearl necklace and I always wear it with everything, even with jeans. But the most memorable gift that I ever got was when I was moved from the house on the beach, where there was so much noise and complications and I was given the house where I live now where there are so many orchids, so much peace, so many green things, where my dogs and I are so happy. That was my gift last Christmas: my house.
Let's talk about food, a Christmas dish...
- Frankly, my problem is that I like dishes from all over the world, that is why I have this little problem, but we celebrate Christmas with a suckling pig and, at my house, we follow tradition: pork, rice and black beans, yuca, which is a tuber we prepare with garlic; but since everyone in my family-my husband and my kids-are North Americans, we make turkey, some years we make ham because I am a sweet ham addict, it's my favorite, or sometimes, some other meat. Well, what I like the most at Christmas, that some of my friends always bring me, is a cured ham covered with honey and sugar and, as soon as it gets to my house, we open it, my daughter gets a knife and a fork, and I get my own, we stand there and we eat half it in one sitting. I love that.
Christmas with the family
