For me, it’s a stodgy Christmas

It’s on the 25th of December, the 359th day of the year. And the war between Mary and Merry is on its climax, I usually don’t take sides in the war but on this particular one, am compelled to. I’m one of those liberal conservative people, if there are any left, who don’t see any value of Christmas. I can literally mark it as any normal day, watch a movie or two, eat snacks and fall asleep. To me and a couple of lost sheep out there, this day is simply a free rest day. 

I don’t like history either, my father made sure of that, so I can’t claim to understand Christmas history and its origins. If in deed Jesus Christ was born on this day, then I need to be born thrice again. Regardless of my silly assumptions and opinions, who cares anyway, it’s a day worth celebrating. I’m writing this piece from the last pew of the church, “Praise the Lord, Amen!” I gotta hurry up before my pastor thinks am possessed and starts praying for me. 

Christmas has always been that time of the year when I have to travel to shags to meet those funny looking villagers who expect the world from me. If only they knew that Nairobi is not a land of manna and honey as they think. I hate shags not because I wasn’t raised there but because of their old school culture. In this twenty first century, they still can’t let go those outdated norms and taboos. 

I remember once buying flash toilets for my folks, I really don’t know why they prefer pit latrines, but those old looking men who have no business hanging around, whom someone can be mistaken to think they haven’t showered for weeks, cast me out as trying to be disrespectful to their traditions. I had to undergo some cleansing. That is the last of me they saw until yesterday, when I arrived to their cold welcome. 

I wasn’t prepared to travel for more than six hours to that distant place, forgo all the fun in the city and be a slave at the village, until my aunt came barraging at my face. “Victor you have to travel, it’s a tradition that we meet at least once every year to celebrate our achievements and underscore our failures”. She went on with that famous quote that is now a cliché, “Without family we have nothing, without family we are nothing”. “What is the last time that you visited your grandpa? Eeeh. 

He has been asking for you for ages. Last year you had an excuse. If you won’t see him this time round, the next probable time you would possibly see him is at his funeral”. With that irrefutable persuasion, I was compelled rather forced to change my plans and head to my ancestral home, so to say. Christmas days are always arranged for me. Like I said, there is no freedom here. 

Item number one on the list is to attend a church sermon and fellowship together, after which we will all proceed home for family photos, then take lunch, a family gathering will ensue, prayers follow next and then finally we will jumpstart into a celebration. Down there they have indicated, “Let’s mark this Christmas in style”, but honestly the style has been always the same, year in year out. I can’t wait to see the agenda of that family gathering, I guess as usual, boring. 

A part from that, this year is on its last kicks, at least that is what my calendar is telling me. Precisely less than a week left till we usher in a new year. I guess I should be working on my new year resolutions, which I hardly meet. The year has been a bad year for me, if not the worst, but I better leave my sorrows to myself. I barely noticed that we were in December already until I started seeing Christmas trees being erected in malls. In deed time flies. 

I haven’t achieved much this year, in fact I haven’t achieved anything at all, just adding an extra year to my age count. Again am reminded that we ought to hope for a better brighter year ahead. I very much look forward to 2018, the year I will be on my last leg to clock a quarter a century of my entire life on earth. If all mangoes are golden and nothing golden is cheap but all mangoes are cheap, then am pretty sure all is not lost for me. With that, let me end it here by wishing each and every one reading this post a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous Happy New Year.