Can Ghanaians find their Christmas spirit again?

Tis’ the season to be jolly, full of cheer and to make merry. Christmas means different things to different people. For some, it is a time to rejoice over the birth of their saviour. For others, it is a time to relax and take stock of what has happened during the past months and prepare for the coming ones.

Over the years, however, the spirit of Christmas has been conspicuously absent from a lot of Ghanaian homes. The vibrant celebrations and general good cheer that used to characterise the season seem to have progressively dwindled in intensity.

A lot of people are feeling the pinch in their pockets and so cannot allow themselves to take more than a couple of days off to enjoy what should be the festive season. This is despite the Ghana Statistical Service recording an increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) over the last quarter of the year, from 2% to 3.3%.

The gross domestic product (GDP) is the total value of final goods and services produced in a country within a particular period. GDP per capita is a measure of the total output of a country that takes the GDP and divides it by the number of people in the country. A rise in GDP per capita signals growth in the economy and tends to translate as an increase in productivity. Calculating on a year-on-year basis, the GDP advanced 5.3% in the second quarter of 2014.

The constant gripe of having no electricity seems also to have affected the festive mood of most Ghanaians because not everyone would be able to afford the luxury of owning a generator. The added cost of fuel and maintenance cannot be forgotten. Having one full day of electricity and two days of twelve hours without, would affect anyone’s holiday mood.

Trips to the city centres have revealed traffic jams and a choked human presence. This is because people must either conduct business as normal or make use of what little holiday time they have to glean some sort of satisfaction from the season, by completing their Christmas, New Year and back to school shopping.

In the midst of this, online stores like Kaymu Ghana and delivery companies like Hello Food provide services that could bring some reprieve. It behoves on us as a whole to endeavour to make the most of all opportunities available to us to enjoy the joy that the Christmas season usually brings.

It is time for each person to endeavour to share some of their joy, if they manage to find it and do well to spread peace and goodwill towards all men.

Merry Christmas.