(Ruben Abati)-- …[Christmas] was also that time of
the year for the reinforcement of family values. People whom you had not seen
for the whole year travelled home from their stations to be part of Christmas.
You got the chance to meet cousins, make new friends, and sing till you almost
went hoarse.
I wasn’t much of a singer or drummer- my friends used to
laugh each time I missed a note or a beat and we would spend weeks afterwards
mimicking each other. In short, Christmas was real fun. But it was relatively a
simple, inexpensive celebration, year after year. Our parents did not have to
borrow, or go bankrupt, or agonize, for Christmas to be meaningful.
We got one or two new clothes and shoes: those were the
usual Christmas gifts. On Christmas day, after church, lunch didn’t have to be
anything extra-ordinary: it was no more than rice and chicken. In those days,
chicken was a special delicacy, reserved for Sundays, or special occasions like
birthdays or Christmas, very much unlike now that every child acquires the
taste for tasty chicken from the womb! On Boxing Day, we either visited friends
or stayed home, and played with firecrackers and bangers on the streets. Those
children who could not afford bangers were not left out. They improvised with
local devices made by blacksmiths. That contraption produced even better
effect.
