Friend Friday - Christmas edition

Merry Christmas, y'all! I'm freezing in Michigan right now, but that doesn't mean I can't play the Friend Friday game, am I right?
So this week:
The Christmas Edition

1. Your favorite holiday memory:
This is a hard one, but I'm going to speak in generalities and say that my favorite holiday memories are the ones that revolve around my family in Puerto Rico. The parrandas, the pasteles and lechón, and the thrill of being with the family that I see so rarely. Also, there's nothing quite like getting away with a bright, sunny Christmas on the beach while everyone else is freezing.

2. Were you ever a victim of those family Christmas party photo shoots? What do you think about them now? Care to share an old photo?
I don't know exactly what this means... I have plenty of embarrassing Christmas photos from over the years, but I don't have access to those right now (how convenient). What I do have is a picture of all the cousins and my grandmother on my cousin Y's last Christmas with us (he's the one to the right of my grandmother). He passed away something like six years ago, and I'm so thankful that we were able to spend that Christmas with him.


3. Best Christmas gift you ever gave:
This is hard because I always forget what I gave people when and when we go back to PR, we don't really do the gift exchanging thing on Christmas. We just give people stuff as soon as we get off the plane. I'm going to say that the best gift I've ever given is quality family time. Clearly, Christmas is all about family to me....

4. Craziest/funniest holiday family tradition:
I don't know if these are crazy/funny, but they are my favorites. When we can't go back home - and by home, I mean Puerto Rico - we watch Banco Popular videos around Christmas time. They're these videos put together by a bank in PR featuring traditional Puerto Rican music. They're based around a theme or the works of a particular artist and feature a decent collection of A list celebrities (Marc Anthony, Gilberto Santa Rosa, and Alejandro Fernández come to mind) doing songs that are appropriate for the theme.
Besides that, there's a lot of singing of Puerto Rican Christmas music (considerably more upbeat and secular than the US variety) and plenty of dancing, because it is just not a holiday if my cousins don't make my mother dance by dragging her to her feet and then dragging her around the dance floor. For the record, my mother doesn't dance. Oh, and my uncle P should play a practical joke on someone, usually my aunt M.

5. Favorite type of Christmas cookie:
We don't do Christmas cookies, but my favorite Christmas sweet is definitely coquito. Y'all need to try it. We served virgin coquito at our wedding last year, and it was quite a hit.