The evolution of Christmas celebrations in Kenya

It smelt like Christmas, looked like Christmas and felt like Christmas. As Kenya celebrates 50 years of independence, those who grew up in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s recall Christmas as a time for serious merrymaking and fixed routines.

From cards sent through the post office to decorated city streets, it was a time to drop everything else and have fun. Most businesses closed for days and newspapers carried the President’s goodwill messages on page one. How times have changed!

Interviews with those who have watched the transformation, and with help from the Nation Media Group (NMG) archives, show how Kenyans have celebrated the birth of Christ over the years.

“Back in the day, Sh100 was enough to fund a party of 10,” recalls Ms Gladys Muthoni, 65, a trader at City Market. “Today, you need at least Sh10,000 for the same.”

Perhaps due to Kenya’s young economy in the 1960s and 1970s, most people, including grown-ups, waited until Christmas to go on a shopping spree for new clothes.

This was also the only time some could afford “special diets” like chapati, rice and meat.

“We could not afford to eat those expensive meals on a regular basis,” says Mr Ephantus Muyaka, 69, a retired teacher.

Mr Muyaka adds: “Nowadays, these are the foods everyone is eating every day so a traditional Kenyan meal can be a pleasant change during Christmas.”

While some things have remained unchanged, many others are totally different. Just like today, millions of litres of alcohol were drowned and thousands of chickens, goats and cows slaughtered as Kenyans broke the bank for the celebrations.

The craze to travel upcountry and to celebrate the birth of Christ with relatives was also quite strong between the 1960s and the 1980s.

Nonetheless, there was also some reverse migration for a smaller number of people from rural Kenya to celebrate Christmas with relatives and friends in urban areas. Travelling to Nairobi and Mombasa by bus or train, especially for the first time, was a particular badge of honour.

And just like some people from major cities and towns will be doing this weekend, back in the day, many travelled to and from their rural areas with beds and sofa sets. The same was done on the return journey.

People also carried vinyl turntable systems and many discs to their rural homes. The practice has not been completely eradicated as some people now carry their CD changers.

That is not all. In years gone by, people got stranded on the roads due to exorbitant fares and lack of enough public service vehicles. For example, in 1988 commuters travelling from Nakuru to Kericho complained to Daily Nation that the fare had been raised from Sh40 to Sh100.

Reports of road accidents during the festive season were also as common as they are today.

However, unlike today, in the 1960s and 1970s, people with huge bags would queue in an orderly manner on a first-come-first-served basis as they waited for their turn to board the buses.

“That was Christmas. The modern celebrations are a joke. We even went to church in droves, not like today where everyone is planning to go to a bar,” said Ms Muthoni.

The multiplicity of large shopping bags from Ebrahims, Uchumi and Jack & Jill supermarkets in Nairobi would be a further sign of heavy December spending, with most of the goods making their way to the village.

Now, most will simply drive or catch a bus to their rural areas with just a few clothes to change. With supermarkets such as Nakumatt, Tuskys, Uchumi, Ukwala and Naivas opening branches across the country, anything one wants to enliven the Christmas party is available across the road.

In urban centres, people would carry equally huge bags full of cooking items and clothes as gifts for their friends. Today, this is no more as shopping vouchers are the in-thing.

“Globally, this (voucher) is already a major gift item as it provides the receiver with the gift of choice,” says Ms Jeddidah Thotho, the group director, marketing and business development, at Deacons.

Supermarkets and high-end boutiques have in the past few months been advertising their vouchers.

“Our African culture has always been one of giving and generosity,” says Ms Thotho, justifying the gift vouchers by companies such as hers.

Ms Thotho thinks that the culture of gifting in Kenya has changed significantly over the past few years. In the past, buying a youngster a bottle of soda in the village trading centre and giving them Sh5 pocket money or some sweets was enough on top of a good meal and new clothes. But today, some expect gifts worth thousands of shillings for Christmas.

“Today, children have access to clothes at any time of the year and their exposure to brands, movies, television shows and even the Internet is growing all the time,” says Ms Thotho.

“These advances have stimulated kids to want more and also their parents to satisfy them with more toys and gadgets that support their lifestyle.”

Mobile phone money transfer services like M-Pesa, Airtel Money and Orange Money will also come in handy for those wishing to send gifts to their friends.

“For my BFF (best friend forever), I’ll just buy her a gift voucher. But I’ll have to select a personalised gift like a watch or a pair of shoes for my fiancé,” says Ms Michelle Gatwiri, a banker. “Even if times are changing, I still believe you still need to go the extra mile for some people in your life.”

Many Kenyans have also been crafting creative messages to be sent via social media sites or SMS.

The trendy communication tools available on smart phones such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber and Blackberry Messenger, which are virtually free and popular among the youth, will also come into play.

Things were different, though, back in the day. In 1969, Daily Nation ran a page-one story praising the General Post Office (GPO) in Nairobi for being swift in clearing mail, a bulk of which were Christmas cards.

GPO staff praised Kenyans for sending the Christmas cards and letters early to allow time for their speedy dispatch.

“Well done GPO,” the paper’s editor said.

But today, GPO is a pale shadow of its former self. With a dwindling number of customers sending letters, handling of voluminous Christmas mail is the least post office bosses worry about this festive season. Other than text messages — some widely circulated — many people now simply send e-cards.

IT expert Alex Gakuru says that the simplicity of sending such electronic messages to multiple recipients diminishes the special feeling attached to cards.

“It encourages laziness on the part of senders as they do not have to go out of their way to search for a special card for loved ones. The ‘new culture’ of the e-card also suppresses creativity,” says Mr Gakuru.

In addition, commercial photographers might have a dry Christmas due to the changing technology.

Back in the day, the ultimate keepsake of merrymaking for those who celebrated their Christmas in Nairobi was a photo near the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Uhuru Park or in decorated photo studios with backgrounds and props that, in hindsight, would make some people blush in embarrassment today.

Various monuments — many of them built to mark Kenya’s 20 years of independence in 1983 and in 1988 to celebrate 10 years of then President Daniel arap Moi’s rule (Nyayo era) — in places as diverse as Nairobi, Nakuru and Wajir — were also popular photo sites. In Mombasa, the beaches and the famous giant tusks were favourite spots. 

It was also interesting the kind of poses people struck. Apart from the popular arms akimbo style, there was the famous one of raising the arm and having the photograph taken in such an angle that it appeared one was touching the tip of KICC.

Mark you, the street photographers with their manual cameras had to “wash” (develop) the roll of film in the studio.   

Today, the sharp increase in the sale of smart phones with high resolution cameras — which seem to be replacing digital cameras — means that trips to the photo studios or KICC to take a picture are no longer popular.

Pictures available in NMG archives also show how streets in Nairobi and other towns used to be well decorated while buildings and shop windows were painted with Christmas messages. The mayor’s Christmas tree was also a hit.

There was no guessing what season it was. Today entrepreneurs have to factor in the fees they would need to pay to the county government just for decorating shop windows with Christmas messages.

Individualism has also kicked in, especially in urban areas, and many families now celebrate Christmas on their own, as opposed to days when they would visit others. But in many rural areas, Christmas day is still marked by crowds of people congregating in trading centres for various activities after attending church service.

“It is often time for those who have been drinking chang’aa throughout the year to drink beer and children who have been saving coins for months to buy a 500ml bottle of soda and mandazi. Others turn Christmas into a time to fight those they disagreed with earlier in the year,” says Godfrey Odongo in Siaya.

In the past, people dressed as Father Christmas would also present gifts to children in major urban centres, but the practice has died down, perhaps due to harsh economic times. Today, rather than dropping down the fabled chimney at night to leave gifts, Father Christmas is likely to be spotted ringing a bell outside a fast foods joint or an “exhibition” store to entice customers.

Despite the many changes, one thing remains firm in Kenya: the Christmas cheer continues! 

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The ‘pagan’ origins of Xmas. And why it still matters

The Christmas holiday is a lot older than you might think, dating from thousands of years before Jesus was born.

It all started with New Year celebrations that marked the northern hemisphere’s shortest day of the year in Mesopotamia, Persia, Babylon, Greece and Rome.

The Roman celebrations began in mid December, ended on January 1, and included big meals, visiting friends, gifts, decorations made from green trees, and observing the birthday of Mithra — the infant god of the unconquerable sun — on December 25.

Although most Christians nowadays celebrate the birthday of Jesus on the same day, the early Christians were aware they didn’t know exactly when he was born. Even the Gospels contain a few mistakes on the subject — as was first noticed by Emil Schuerer in 1885.

For example, we read that the Nativity took place while Quirenius was governor of Syria, with authority over Judaea. Quirenius was appointed in AD 6, when the province was brought under Roman rule. Jesus’ birth is also linked with King Herod, but by AD 6 Herod had been dead for 10 years. He died shortly after an eclipse which took place in March 4 BC — and so he was no longer king when Quirenius became governor of Syria.

Then there’s the “decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered”. Joseph, a man of Nazareth in Galilee, would not have been subject to it, because in AD 6, Galilee was still under an independent ruler, and so Joseph had no earthly reason to go to Bethlehem.

Of course, one of this affects the essential truth or power of the story. But it remains true that some details are shrouded in mystery. This includes the precise reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25. It’s likely that the date was chosen to coincide with the existing pagan celebrations.

This also explains how so many of their customs came to be included in the celebration of Christmas, including carol singing. That first started in Europe thousands of years ago, when pagan songs were sung during the shortest day festivals.

The first Christian carol was sung in Rome in AD 129, but they didn’t begin to get popular until 1223 when St Francis of Assisi started Nativity Plays where the performers sang “canticles” telling the story.

Perhaps the most famous modern carol service is the service of Nine Lessons and Carols. First performed in 1918 at King’s College Cambridge in celebration of the end of the First World War, it’s traditionally started by a choirboy singing the first verse of the Carol “Once in Royal David’s City” as a solo.

And so, all over the world people gather for Christmas, drawn together by the power and joy of the story, and by traditions that go back long before Christianity — and nowhere more so than in Africa where most try hard to get home by Christmas Eve to be with family and friends.

For my friend Geoffrey, who’s Luhya, people get together to eat chicken, play the isikuti and dance. Or Joseph from Baringo, whose whole family goes to church on Christmas morning and eats and drinks until at least 3pm. The food will be rich and special.

In Kisii, a special meal of brown ugali made of maize, cassava, sorghum and millet is prepared, while Judy’s Teso family will drink tea, and enjoy chapati, rice and meat together. In fact, all over Africa, the aim is to have lots of food and welcome visitors.

All over the world, Christmas is a time of fellowship and joy. Of eating and drinking and celebration. A time to remember the real meaning of the Christmas story. And to be with friends and family.

- Chris Hart