My aunt married, but her husband died shortly after my father died. Christmas we always spent together. We were Catholic, so on Christmas Eve it was fish or chicken. Christmas Day we would have meat. I still make a lot of the Spanish foods - fried chicken, rabbit, paella, rice, potatoes.
Spanish food is very European, meats and sauces.
My mom worked packing fruit for shipping in the years 1920 to 1940. She worked at the Bucktown Ranch, McKevitt's packing sheds, Pacific Fruit Exchange and Lamberts. Just about all the ladies who were packing were Spanish. There would be an Italian lady here and there, but it was mostly the Spanish ladies. About four or five women would work in the packing sheds on the ranches and more at the Pacific Fruit Exchange and American Fruit Exchange.