How was Christmas and how will the New Year be at your neck of woods?

Christmas is already behind us and we are eagerly waiting to celebrate the New Year.

My question is: how did you spend Christmas and how will the New Year be?

Charity begins at home, so let me start.

Christmas

When I was a kid, Christmas was a big affair.

As soon as we broke for the Christmas holidays, we went south of the city of Kumasi in Ghana (West Africa) where the colonial administration had housed its British administrators in imposing bungalows niched inside the forested zone.

We fetched bamboo from the bush and left some green mambas dead. Childhood naughtiness.

Back home, we built our “Christmas house” which we covered with thick cartons we got from the Central Business District of Adum West of the city.

At dawn, we rose from our mats in our parents’ apartments and went to continue sleeping in our house in the vacant lot behind the house to candlelight provided by candles we made from our church’s melted candle wax and wick we got from where I don't know anymore.

When the sun began to get hot, we went back home to wash down. Christmas carols floated all around us from radios and rare gramophones (you remember?).

We profited from every occasion to gloat over our new Christmas clothes (still in our parents’ possession till 25th December when we will wear them to church) and biscuits and soft drinks (to be relished on 24th, 25th, 31st December and 1st January).

Nowadays, Christmas is as ordinary as any humdrum day, especially in Lome, Togo, where I live now in the eastern neighboring country of Ghana.

What hasn’t changed is the night Mass people throng to on 24th December and 25th morning. However I stayed home as usual and continued to grade my students’ first term examination papers. This surprises visitors to our home and my wife profits to tell them my favorite wife are papers and books.

Just ask anybody here how they spent Christmas and they’ll tell you with a wry face, “Did anybody spend it? Money is scarce now.” Then they’ll sigh and continue on their way.

New Year

Since I moved here in the early eighties, I realized that they relish the New Year more than Christmas, contrary to Ghana.

What should I expect?

The churches (especially Catholic and Protestant) will be jam-packed for the midnight mass.

At midnight, people feverishly whisper their New Year wishes (soon to be forgotten in the hustle and bustle of life) to the popping of crackers which rent the calm night and light the dark sky in all sorts of colors and patterns.

The drinking spots will blare music to happy customers till dawn. Parties are organized in many homes too where people eat, drink and dance till dawn.Good morning, hangover!

In the morning, the air becomes pleasurable heavy with the smells of sizzling seasoned and roasted meat. The day will be spent eating and drinking to the sounds of loud music.

In my childhood, it was time again to visit family members who fill us up with good food and drinks.

We came back home to fight over the sharing of the money as the elder brother or sister who collected the money would want to have the lion’s share.

All that is gone with the years. Nowadays nobody comes to you if you don’t invite them. Not that they need an invitation. No, that's not how things go here. But the festive occasion has become individual families’ affairs.

The few people who come to exchange greetings with my wife and my kids’ friends will be surprised once more to find me still grading papers as I have quite a lot to hand over in January.

And now it’s your turn to tell us your story.

Akoli