No Christmas for 30 Years
Did you know that Cubans didn’t celebrate Christmas for three decades? Scratch that—they weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas for 30 years while Fidel Castro was the head honcho of the island nation. In 1969, he outlawed Christmas celebrations, deeming it to be a distraction.
A distraction from what exactly? The country couldn’t afford to go on holiday for one day of the 12-month calendar. This was specifically aimed at sugar cane farmers, who the country relied on to rake in the dough. However, Fidel “eased up” on the whole Christmas celebration thing by allowing people to celebrate it in 1997. In 1998, it was back to business as usual.