SYNOPSIS

Three sassy BFFs get together for a holiday gathering, down plenty of tequila and share embarrassing childhood photos. After a toast, Mexiunian (Mexican-Lithuanian American) Maria confesses to every hilarious detail of her overprotective and controlling Mexican mother’s behavior. Maria also reveals that she was heavily bullied as a child and, thanks to her fierce mother, that girl “stopped bullying me after my mom threatened her life… in church… with a machete.” Maria’s story inspires Diana to reveal her complex Cuban-American childhood. “Christmas at Casa Yanez was always haunting… disturbing...and traumatic.” She describes the sheer chaos of her childhood growing up with her traumatized parents who had barely escaped Fidel Castro’s deadly take-over. Big drama was a part of every holiday as illustrated by Diana when she tells one of her most hilariously disturbing memories - that Christmas her family was attacked by a giant flying cockroach! These high-spirited tales inspire Sandra to share her Christmas experience as a queer child growing up Mexican Catholic in a border town household in Laredo, Texas. Besides the usual yuletide anxiety experienced by most first-generation Hispanic-Americans - “We were nothing like the white people on TV” - young Sandra wonders if her parents will ever get it “that I liked boy toys NOT girl toys.” And when her mom was diagnosed with a rare terminal disease, it was this journey as a caretaker that gave Sandra a new perspective. She realizes that it’s not always “what we have to do, but what we get to do.” Having shared their stories, all three women connect with the universal truth that families and holidays are hard, but always full of  joy, wonder, and hilarity. 

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LATINA CHRISTMAS SPECIAL fosters understanding among different Hispanic groups and promotes tolerance in America through humor and the sharing of the universal experiences of childhood.