Jay Leno joked about the ideal gift for Cuban friends: a rubber raft. Colin Quinn, Saturday Night Live's ``Weekend Update'' anchor, announced the hottest-selling toys in Havana this season are Tickle Me Castro and the Fideletubbies.

But by far the best lines regarding the regime's Yuletide declaration can be found in the declaration itself, a full-page hemorrhage of ideological contortions, a supremely skewed sleigh ride through world history, from the Middle Ages to the middle-of-last-week.

Published some days ago on the front page of Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, the Christmas communique is compelling and confounding -- a little like watching someone recite the entire contents of the Microsoft annual report, while on helium.

Except for last year, when the government temporarily decreed Christmas a holiday in preparation for Pope John Paul II's visit, Christmas was considered a counterrevolutionary act.

Castro declared his government communist and atheist in 1962. Seven years later, in the middle of a winter sugar harvest, he banned Christmas.

The ban was vigorously upheld, leaving no doubt, year after dreary year, that the only shade of red allowed in the plaza was Revolution Red.

Now comes the Political Bureau of the Communist Party with the revised version of events.

``. . . The canceling of the national holiday on Dec. 25, as everyone in our country knows . . . came at the start of the 1970 sugar harvest, when the country took on a colossal effort to produce 10 million tons of sugar, with hundreds of thousands of workers mobilized across the country since November 1969, when harvesting combines didn't exist and 90 million tons of sugar cane had to be cut by hand.

``. . . No enemy action could create an anti-religious sentiment in the Revolutionary leadership, which has always defended the unity of our people, nor could it engender the selfish, impolitic idea of suspending, for purely philosophical differences alien to the human and revolutionary context of the Gospel, a religious holiday, offending hundreds of millions of Christians across the world. . . . No true Marxist ever would commit such an error.

``. . . The best proof that the cancellation of the Dec. 25 national holiday did not have a political motivation is that it was untouched for 10 years following the triumph of the Revolution.

``. . . Although a national holiday in the midst of our times of austerity and under a relentless economic blockade means the sacrifice of tens of millions of pesos in salaries and in unproduced goods and services, the Cuban Communist Party, fully conscious of all that contributes to the seamless unity of our people . . . absolutely sure that whatever loss could be amply compensated with our daily work and increasing efficiency . . . conscious that all our people, on the eve of the Revolution's 40th anniversary will enjoy of a day of rest and family bonding . . . having previously consulted and obtained the unanimous approval of representatives of a range of religions in Cuba, Christian and non-Christian, proposes to the Council of State that from this year forward each 25th of December be considered a national holiday for Christians and non-Christians, believers and non-believers.''

That closing thought is contained in a sentence of more than 180 words. I'd say Santa should pack some editing pencils in his sack -- or maybe a few shovels.
Liz Balmaseda can be reached by e-mail at
lbalmaseda@herald.com

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