My family can be described unfavourably as just a wee bit competitive.

Take Christmas, for example.  Because someone always tries.  With the best gift, the most outrageous cookies, the most festive holiday sweater.

And then, there’s the family-wide radio contest that has made me jump inside my skin whenever I hear Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad.”

Ever since I can remember, the Family Feliciano Feud has gone thusly:  the first person to hear “Feliz Navidad” on the radio must immediately call the other family members and hold the phone up to the radio to prove they heard the song first.  Simple?  Crazy?  The advent (tee hee) of cellular phones has made this competition more intense, as has the fact that Christmas music has begun playing earlier and earlier on the radio and in stores.  One must be at the ready as early as October if one wishes to win the day.

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard it yet, here’s the man himself singing the famous tune back in the year of my birth: