At age 32, I can still recollect my painful experience on the Christmas of 1982 when my parents let me down. They had bought new dresses and shoes for all my sisters, including our house helps but left me out. My mother explained that with the birth of the fourth baby just the month before, my father had little money left to spend on presents. Besides, my grandmother had come from Agona-Swedru to spend Christmas with us. I nodded in tears but I never forgave my parents. Why me? Did I ask them to get a fourth baby so soon? And a girl too, the fourth in seven years! I had considered telling my mum to send the tot back to wherever she plucked her from.
Not that the previous Christmas had been any better, but this was particularly bad. No shoes, a pair trousers or even a Christmas hat for a popular boy with a Brazilian ‘guyname’ in a compound house of gossip black queens? Even my best playmate had the luxury of choosing between three new mini joromi embroidered outfits his unemployed father had bought him. My parents had been unfair and the little girl was inconsiderate for hurrying out before Christmas.
This happened 24 years ago but the bad luck has followed every Christmas I have celebrated since then. Now I live in London where Christmas means something a little different from what I was brought up to believe, except the Christmas cards. Children here believe that Father Christmas (Santa) is real and they roam shopping centres looking for a grey bearded old man dressed in bright red and white garments. But these days, English children are becoming suspicious that Santa is not a celestial being who drops down from the skies every year to take charge of Yuletide as Master of Ceremonies. They know that any one of their benevolent big uncles could wear the Santa costume and stuff his pockets with sweets to distribute to curious children.
The Christian festival celebrated around the world is perhaps one of the few traditions yet to be deleted into the trash can of modernity. It may have been recycled in many ways, but Christmas is celebrated across the world for reasons that are not dissimilar-Jesus is born and we make merry to celebrate the virgin birth of a Messiah. The celebration causes mass consumer hysteria everywhere-the spend, spend lunacy. Sales of retail shops hit record high as consumers dare to spend every kobo out of their pesewa. The cedi redenomination will not alter this pattern; it will only take out the zeros. Those saving for next year’s Christmas may be lucky to avoid the inflationary burden on the currency, if things go well, but nothing would have changed.
It starts with a splash of decorative lighting in Christian homes and minor improvements. There is a careful balance between shopping for food and presents, depending on the premium placed on the festival. The mass slaughter of goats and turkeys completes the spending cycle. So effectively everything finishes on Boxing Day-26-but all decorations are pulled down 12 days after Christmas Day.
The beauty of Christmas reflects in many aspects of community life. You buy a pack of 12 Christmas cards with two people in mind but there are hardly any leftovers. Intimate acquaintances receive the compliments of the season just as occasional enemies do. As rivals receive their gifts with a pinch of salt, the thought of letting the old year go with old squabbles would flash across their minds. But certain wrongs remain unforgivable. The compliments of the season are actually meant for that season only. After Christmas, they become condolences.
In compound houses, this hypocrisy is dramatised in a very special way. Warring factions groom their differences over time, waiting for 25th December to exchange specially prepared food as a reconciliation gesture. No words are spoken; the food does all the talking. After that, it becomes possible to borrow each other’s pestle and swap mortars. The ban on children is then removed so they can play with kids from next door. Visitors are also given the all clear to greet former enemies of their hosts.
But old rivalry is like a machine that has been oiled since time began; the least little turn will set it in motion. And when it moves, there is no friction. The reconciliation usually expires as the food digests in their ungrateful stomachs. A reconciliatory drama that casts food as an actor and the stomach serving as the stage will only attract a boring audience. So the rivalry resumes with the dawn of the New Year.
Perhaps, these dramas happen because not everybody believes in Christmas. I live in a flat within a big block of apartments where I get to mix with people of different religious persuasions. My flatmate is a Muslim who brands me a scientific illiterate because I am naïve enough to believe that, a virgin could conceive out of nothing and give birth to a boy called Jesus. He proved himself a genius of a scientific literate when he began to lecture me on parthenogenesis-the process where an animal, especially in the case of lizards, can reproduce without a male. Komodos, those lizard dragon species, have no natural predators; they are at par with sharks and lions. He queried: why was Jesus pursued by his Jew predators and killed like any other?
He is not against Christmas as a festival but he believes that if the foundation of the festival is Christ’s virgin birth, then it is laughable. He also does not believe that Jesus died and rose after the third day. According to him, Jesus was a smart guy; he had a lot of body-doubles, just as Saddam Hussein used to do. When he was about to die, he swapped places with one of his doubles. So it is a Jesus look-alike who was crucified at Calvary while the real Jesus was whisked up to heaven. He returned three days later and pretended he had risen from the dead, showing fake scars all over.
It was the first time I was confronting such terrible blasphemy but it was not the only time I had heard that somebody does not believe in Christmas. Folks in the SDA faith and Jehovah witnesses do not believe in Christmas. They say it is not in the Bible. But there are many things we do today that have no biblical basis. We have cunning money-raising schemes in our charismatic churches where Christians are virtually intimidated to pledge money during harvests. It is fashionable for a wedding couple to ride in a limousine in Accra. Should we ride on camels as old folks used to do?
May be, Christmas is gradually losing its attraction. Last year, more than 50,000 tourists visited the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem. This year, the BBC reports that there are virtually no tourists at the square as shops and other attractions had been shut down. There are too many things on people’s minds in an internet age.
But Christmas is here again. I have already sent out a few cards and gifts. Even though I have improved on my gift wrapping skills, I am still not sure what gift items will suit some of my female friends. Last year, I spent a fortune on jewellery items and a designer perfume on a lady in my church. After Christmas, she sent me a text message that she would have preferred money to the items I gave her. This lady has read a thing or two on Christology-the branch of theology that deals with the person, character and role of Christ. But she doesn’t care overstepping the bounds of womanly modesty to make nonsense of the meaning of Christmas.
As I contemplate whether I should send her another gift this year, I am wondering how Christians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Dafur will spend Christmas. Children in these countries will be happy not to receive gifts from anybody if they could be left alone in peace. But there is blood everywhere. There will be no shopping, no toffees, no Christmas trees and no Santa while Ghanaian children enjoy Christmas-spiced abenkwan and kelewele in relative peace.
In their situation, the worst form of positive change will be better than the status quo. If there is anything I want for Christmas, I wish there will be a semblance of normality in these areas before the epiphany on 6th January 2007.
Merry Christmas!
See you in the New Year.
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