The enduring meaning of Christmas

They have finally done it!

Just when you thought they couldn’t squeeze any more Christmas out of the season, they just went ahead and retrenched Father Christmas’s reindeer!

You see, there’s this Christmas advert in which Father Christmas announces to his faithful able horsemen of centuries, also known as the reindeer, that he won’t be needing their services to deliver gifts to children across the world anymore. This after he has consumed an energy drink that gives him wings.

Now, why should you care about the reindeer, you may ask. And what in heaven’s name is a reindeer anyway?

It looks a little like our African antelopes, the kind with large intertwining horns. And this is why you should care. What with technology and everything, very soon, you won’t be able to recognise Christmas.

First it was the Christmas card that went out of the window. Back then we bought or made cards that we would send out or hang in our living rooms as décor, and they would be recycled every year.

IMPERSONAL CHRISTMAS

Now we send bulk SMSs and Whatsapp messages. More convenient, much cheaper but a lot more impersonal, methinks.

Over the years, how we celebrate Christmas has evolved. As a child, my parents bought the greenest tree they could find by the roadside, just a few days to Christmas.

We would then haul it home, anchor it in a Kimbo tin, surrounded by several rocks to keep it upright.

Thereafter, we would place cotton balls on the branches in solidarity with our snowed in brethren from the northern hemisphere. We bought sparkly decorations that we hung on every conceivable surface in the living room.

Last on the tree were the Christmas lights, which would blow out one by one until only a couple were still working by New Year’s eve.

True, it was a little garish but now we can laugh at the memory of those hideously decorated living rooms.

Preparations for Christmas lunch begun two days before with Boney M’s Christmas album playing in the background.

The women in the family gathered, and we would kneed dough for mandazi and chapati. The meat was marinated in pawpaw, the rice picked and the spices pounded.

In anticipation of the large number of invited guests, Christmas was the one time when our mothers were eager to put aside the cooker and cook outdoors on three stones.

The firewood was gathered, and the stones chosen carefully.

Tasks were divided amongst the women who exchanged friendly banter and gossip about their children and husbands. The last dish was prepared early Christmas morning before we left for church. After the service, it was back home where we gathered over lunch.

Everyone went for seconds and thirds until lunch and dinner merged. Boxing day was no cooking day as there were plenty of leftovers to still feed a small army.

Looking back, I felt secure in the presence of close and extended family, their communion like a warm embrace.

As long as we gathered this way, it seemed, the family would last forever. And then life begun to happen. Grandparents passed. Cousins moved away.

We grew older and begun to question many of the Christmas traditions. Out went the cotton balls, and the fresh Christmas tree was replaced by a store-bought one. The guests grew fewer until it was just immediate family.

DISCARDING TRADITION

The thing is, my children enjoy their Christmases just as much as I enjoyed those of my childhood.

They roll in laughter when they recount the story of how Santa has fired his reindeer. Every generation will take their parents’ time honoured traditions, and decide which ones to keep or discard.

Perhaps in my children’s time, Christmas lunch will be, shudder, bought ready-cooked from the supermarket.

So while I miss the Christmas card, cotton balls on the tree and cooking on three stones, what I’m most grateful for is that the loving embrace of family still remains.

Regardless of what we have been through in the year, the missing faces of loved ones who have gone before us, we can hold hands across the table as we remember the reason for the season, and be glad that the most important parts of Christmas will always endure.