The holiday season is officially upon us and that means two things: 1) Maxing out your credit cards to buy presents for all your 5 billion Latino relatives -we like to reproduce- and 2)The omnipresence of Christmas music. I don’t know about you, but if I hear Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” one more time I’m going to jump in front of a bus. While American Christmas songs are OK, I miss the Latino Christmas songs of my childhood. Growing up in a Cuban family that lived in Mexico and Texas with some Puerto Rican relatives, we had an eclectic mix of songs from these three great countries. Every year while my abuela cooked up the pierna de lechon, arroz y frijoles negros, maduros, y yucca, my mom would sing – God help us – while my tia played many of these songs on guitar.

So, in the spirit of the season I give you Tu Vez’s Ultimate Latino Christmas Playlist on Spotify. It’s truly amazing that all these wonderful songs are on Spotify. I’ve included classics like Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” as well as American standards like “Cascabel” (“Jingle Bells”). There are tunes from Mexico’s villancicos tradition like “Humildes Peregrinos” as well as my favorite Christmas song from when I was a kid, “Rin Rin”. It tells the tale of Mary and Joseph’s burro eating all their chocolate, which is impossible since chocolate wouldn’t arrive in the Middle East for 1500 years, but whatever. I finish with Alvarez Guedes’ timeless “Cada Vez Que Pienso En Ti” which is a response to receiving a Christmas card from an ex…um…colorfully. Plus lots more! I’m not ashamed to admit that I got a little choked up making this list.

The Samsung Galaxy S3

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is the must have phone this Christmas. It has a cutting edge screen that makes all other phones look like an Etch-a-Sketch. The phone will be rolling out soon with the sleek Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” OS which makes the phone both incredibly powerful and easy to use. When you hold a Galaxy S3 it feels like you have something of substance in your hand. I don’t know how to describe it other than it has a nice “hand feel”. Its design is both lightweight and sturdy and doesn’t feel like if you are going to break it by looking at it the wrong way. Get it here.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1

If you are in the market for a tablet, may I suggest the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. This baby works off of the Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS that can run apps, the web, music, or movies equally well. It comes in both a WiFi and a 4G LTE version so you can stream old episodes of “Chespirito” on the go. It’s got a nice set of speakers so yo can bother people on the subway to maximum effect. And at $349 it is a heck of a lot more affordable than any other those…ahem…other tablets out there. Get it here.

Wii U

I’ve been a loyal Nintendo man going back to the days of the original NES. I just love how innovative they are, plus I enjoy playing video games about stereotypical Italian plumbers. The Wii U’s main innovation is its gamepad, a sort of mini console in itself. It includes both an old school analog pad and the Wii-like motion sensor. But, when your girl comes in and wants to watch the Real Housewives of whatever, you can continue playing the game on the gamepad’s screen. Do you realize how many times I had to leave Link dangling in some dungeon because my mom wanted to watch the novelas? Buy it here.

The Barmaid Margarita Salter

How many times have you poured the margarita in the glass and remembered that the person you were pouring it for wanted salt? Then you have to dump it out, wet the rim, blah, blah, disaster. With this little doo dad you salt the rim AFTER you pour the drink. Simply wet the rim and then run the barmaid across it for a nice even salting. You can put sugar in it too if you are making strawberry margaritas…you know…for your girl…I love this thing because I’m a huge “with salt” enthusiast. Maybe that’s why my blood pressure is kind of high? Get it here.

Das Horn

Who were the most awesome, manly, and scary dudes in history? Vikings. These guys loved to drink mead and wipe out villages on a Tuesday. We may not be able to pillage, but we can drink like a viking with Das Horn. This horn-shaped drinking vessel is made of a polycarbonate plastic instead of the horn of some hoofed beast. It also has an attractive rim that you can get customized, plus it’s dishwasher safe! It’s currently on Kickstarter but it will probably make its goal in the next couple of weeks. At only $35 it’s totally worth it. Yalp! Get it here.

Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos. The two go together like sugar skulls and tooth decay. One is an ancient pagan holiday that nowadays is celebrated by having kids extort candy from their neighbors. In the other, we Latinos honor our beloved dead by building altars to their memory and having a picnic on their grave, (no one said we weren’t weird). For us this world and the spirit realm aren’t far apart, ask your abuela. Maybe it’s the connection we have to the world of the dead that make us Spanish speakers such awesome horror directors.

One of the best is Spanish director Paco Plaza. Paco is back to scare the living crap out of you with the Rec 3, the third installment in his Rec saga. The first two films took place mostly in an apartment building where a mysterious distress call leads to a camera crew, that’s filming a day in the life of a squad of firemen, getting an unpleasant surprise. The second film has a SWAT team, or whatever they call it in Ethpaña, coming in to clear the place out but…um…it doesn’t work. The first two films were so terrifying because they all took place in the claustrophobic environment of a seemingly abandoned building. It feeds into our primal reptilian brain’s fear of the dark and being trapped. In Rec 3 the cat is out of the proverbial bag as a wedding is crashed by the buildings…tenants, I guess you’d call them. In the spirit of scaring you to death in Spanish, here are 5 of our favorite Spanish language horror films.

EL HOMBRE SIN ROSTRO – THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE (1950)
You know what’s frightening? Serial killers. You know what’s even scarier? Serial killers without a face. The film uses lots of shadows and fog, clearly influenced by film noir. It’s the story of a police detective that is hunting a sadistic killer. He keeps having nightmares about a faceless man…which is creeeeeepppyyy. There is a twist halfway through the film you will not see coming. But I won’t tell you so it will be a surprise.

JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS – JUAN OF THE DEAD (2011)
I know it sounds like a remake of the English horror/comedy classic Sean of the Dead, but it’s much more than that. It’s the story of a loser named Juan who decides to start a zombie killing business after Havana is overrun by the undead. It’s an effective zombie movie as well as being totally hilarious. It is one of the first horror films to come out of Cuba, made jointly with a Spanish production company. It also throws a few jabs at the Castro government for treating the zombie menace as a secret CIA plot.

EL DIA DE LA BESTIA –THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1995)
Maybe it’s because of the Catholic upbringing most of most of us Spanish speakers, but we are both fascinated and terrorized by the devil. In this film a priest discovers that the anti-Christ is about to be born somewhere in Spain. How will he discover hell’s maternity ward so he can murder the baby? By summoning up Satan with the help of a metal head and a TV psychic, of course! Kids, don’t try this at home

EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO – THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (2001)
Children are creepy. They are more in tune with the spirit world than we jaded adults. In this film, directed by master horror director Guillermo del Toro, a young boy is left in an orphanage after the bloody Spanish civil war. An isolated, dark, and ominous orphanage would be bad enough without all the ghostly stuff going on in there. This one kept me up for a while and I was already in my twenties when I saw it.

LA CASA MUDA – THE SILENT HOUSE (2010)
Yikes. I just saw this movie a few weeks ago with my mom and she didn’t sleep that night. The film is about a girl named Laura who, along with her dad, decides to spend the night in their new house in rural Uruguay, which is…a bit of a “fixer upper”. Things don’t go well. Much like the Hitchcock classic Rope, the entire film is shot in one continuous sequence with no cuts at all. It immerses you in the action, making you feel like you are living the moments as Laura is living them. Oh and it’s a true story.

Border Incident

Ricardo Montalban is something of a punchline nowadays, thanks to his appearances in kitschy TV commercials and self-mocking roles in movies like The Naked Gun. But as a young actor in the 1940s and 50s, he was one of the most prominent Latino actors in Hollywood, and Border Incident is one of his very best movies. Director Anthony Mann is better known for his classic westerns, but this black-and-white noir about dirty dealings near the Mexican border is surprisingly violent and tense for a movie from 1949.

Around the World in Eighty Days

Comedian Cantinflas remains one of the most iconic figures of the Latin world, but his most famous work in Hollywood is undoubtedly the star-studded epic Around the World in Eighty Days. Although most fans of the iconic comedian would agree that this isn’t a complete showcase of Cantinflas’ talents, he’s still one of the best things about the movie – which is saying something, considering the sheer quantity of starpower on display (Hollywood legend says that the term “cameo” was invented for the myriad celebrity appearances in this movie).

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Unfortunately, many Hispanic actors during the classic Hollywood era had to play parts that today seem stereotypical. But a few actors managed to stand out even within those restraints – such as Alfonso Bedoya in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. His “Gold Hat” character in the film is a fearsome villain who stands up to no less than Humphrey Bogart onscreen – and as if that weren’t enough, he also delivers one of the most memorable and iconic lines in movie history, “we don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” with gusto.

The French Connection

Spanish actor Fernando Rey had a long and illustrious career on screen and on stage in both his home country of Spain and across the globe. He’s probably most recognizable among cinephiles for his work with acclaimed surrealist director Luis Buñuel – but his big break in Hollywood came as the titular crime boss in The French Connection. Yes, he’s playing a French druglord in the police action classic, but his work on the film (and its little-seen sequel) makes him one of the all-time great film villains.

Batman: The Movie

Although in reality he was of Cuban descent, “Latin Lover” Cesar Romero was called upon to play all kinds of ethnicities during his time in Hollywood, but his most famous character is difficult to pin down, ethnically speaking. Romero was the first actor to ever bring the iconic Batman villain The Joker to the screen, and his performance in both the TV series and its big-screen spin-off is to this day considered by some to be the definitive version of the character.