Tamale trouble has been making Christmas less jolly for hundreds of Southern Californians.

Customers who bought their traditional Christmas tamales from Amapola markets around Los Angeles County soon have discovered a problem.

The tamales were bad, and according to many people, their Christmas dinners had been ruined. Some of them have also reported illness from eating the tamales.

Angry customers had lined up at the Amapola market in South Los Angeles and other locations to demand refunds. Many of them brought pots full of ruined tamales to the market or shared pictures online of holiday dinner disasters.

Customer Jessica Carrillo said, "They're not made right. I don't know what they did. They even got people in our house sick too."

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Amapola officials have said that they had complaints from customers at all four of their stores. They have been trying to figure out what went wrong with the masa, but are promising to reimburse their customers.

company executive Carlos Galvan Jr stated, "We've been processing refunds all day long. We're going to continue to do that tomorrow. We'll do it all week, as long as it takes to get everybody whole."

The company said that it had stopped making the tamales on December 23, but the damage had already been done because many customers already bought their holiday meals.

By Prakriti Neogi