Rita Moreno Recalls Her Fun & Festive Puerto Rican Holiday Traditions: ‘We’d Go To Someone’s House at 1 AM!’

Rita Moreno has opened up about one of her favorite childhood holiday memories.

The 91-year-old actress, who made her first ever holiday movie this year with Lifetime, spoke to Yahoo about how filming the movie made her recall some of her own family’s traditions from Puerto Rico.

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Rita recalled that while growing up in Puerto Rico, there was a door to door tradition, which sounds like so much fun.

“We did all kinds of wonderful things,” she says. “We take it very, very seriously in a religious and festive way. We’d have these things called parrandas where people got together with instruments — some real, and some cookie cans that you can drum on. Then we’d go to someone’s house at 1 a.m. and sing and make a lot of noise, and they’d have to open the door and invite you in for coquito, a wonderful coconut rum drink.”

Rita says that her family “loved it on the outside, [but] I don’t know how the people inside the houses feel.”

“I can hear them saying, ‘Oh god, they’re here!’ But I loved that. And the food was divine — it was Puerto Rican Caribbean food, which was a big part of Christmas. The table was laden, and it made you think of of love, harmony and affection. All the good stuff we are in desperate need of right now.”

Rita did move to New York City early on in her childhood, where she was introduced to Santa Claus.

“In Puerto Rico, we didn’t have Santa Claus — we had the Three Kings,” she says. “Sometimes people would dress in costumes as the kings, and we’d do parades. It was very beautiful.”

Check your local listings to see when Santa Bootcamp will air in your area.