Around 6:30 last Christmas Eve, my father-in-law lifted the lid off the caja china, raked the last coals into a bucket and stepped back so the rest of us could see. A whole pig, skin blistered and cracked the color of an old saddle, steam rolling out into a cool December night in Westchester. Nobody said anything for a second. Then Dana's brother Javi started clapping, and everyone joined in, including me, and I am not a clapper.
That's Nochebuena at Rafael and Marisol's house, and it's the one night of the year our family never camps.
What a caja china actually is
The first time I saw one, back in 2012, I thought it was a giant toolbox. It's a wooden box lined with metal, about the size of a cooler that takes two people to carry. The pig goes inside on a rack. The lid is a metal tray, and the charcoal goes on top of the lid, not under the meat. The heat comes down from above, so the pig roasts in the box like an oven with the fire on the roof.
Rafael has done this every December 24 for more than 20 years, and like everything he does, he does it like a retired mechanic. There's a notebook. There's a watch. There's a schedule:
- December 23, evening: the pig, about 70 pounds from a butcher he's used forever, gets the mojo. Sour orange juice, two whole heads of garlic, cumin, oregano and a lot of salt, rubbed in and injected. It rests overnight on ice, and for the last two years it has rested in our old Coleman 70-quart cooler, which now has a second career.
- December 24, about 2 p.m.: the first load of charcoal goes on the lid, around 18 pounds.
- Every hour after that: about 10 more pounds. The ash gets shoveled off so it doesn't smother the new coals.
- Around 5:30: the flip. Rafael and Javi turn the pig skin side up using the rack, which is a two-man job and a one-man argument.
- The last hour: the skin crisps. Rafael scores it with a knife so it puffs and crackles.
My job is the same every year. I haul charcoal, I empty the ash and I hold the flashlight once it gets dark. I learned to run a campfire as a YMCA day-camp counselor in college, but the caja china is not my fire, and I know it.
The table
By the time the pig comes out, the kitchen has been going all day. Rafael's black beans, the same ones we carry to camp, with white rice. Yuca with hot mojo poured over the top so the garlic sizzles. Maduros, the sweet fried plantains, piled on a platter that empties first. A tomato, onion and avocado salad. Cuban bread from the bakery down the street. Marisol's flan for dessert, plus turrones, the nougat bars from Spain that only show up in December.
Dinner starts around 8 and doesn't really end. The kids run the yard with their cousins until they collapse on the couch. The grown-ups play dominoes at a folding table in the carport, and around 10 Marisol makes a round of Cuban coffee in her twelve-cup cafetera. Her old six-cup is the one we take camping. She retired it to us, and she still asks how it's doing, like it's a dog we adopted.
Last year Nico fell asleep at 10:40 with a piece of pork skin still in his hand. Maya made it to 11:15 and insisted she wasn't tired.
Why no trip starts before it
Winter break is prime camping season in Florida, and every year someone asks why we don't leave on the 20th like half of Miami. The answer is this night. Dana grew up with it. Her parents host it. Her brother's family drives in for it. It isn't something we plan around. It's what everything else gets planned around.
The practical side matters too. Dana self-schedules her hospital shifts about six weeks out, and the 24th is the first day she blocks every year, trading away a weekend shift to keep it. Christmas morning is for the four of us at home in Kendall, with Pickles supervising the wrapping paper. We pack on the 25th and leave on the 26th.
This year that means two nights in the tent at Jekyll Island, with a forecast already hinting at the 30s. Marisol has promised to send us off with a container of leftover lechón, and I've promised to make pan con lechón on the camp stove the first night, the bread pressed flat under the lid of the Lodge skillet. It's the best thing I cook all year, and I didn't cook any of it.
Nico asked Rafael last week if he could help with the fire this year. Rafael thought about it for a long moment and gave him a job: he's in charge of carrying the empty charcoal bags to the trash, one at a time. Nico accepted it like a promotion.
