The most memorable Christmas celebrations were in school. My childhood memories of Christmas are numerous. I still know a few Christmas carols by heart, and on Christmas I am always in the mood of rejoicing. I remember once playing the part of one of the three shepherds in the school play; I remember the beautiful chapel in school with colored window panes and the carol singing, the candles, the beautiful nuns with their wonderful voices. Nigeria and childhood are far away but the memories remain.
One such memory makes me smile. There was a personal ritual I followed which included buying presents for my sister, mom and dad with my pocket money saved for weeks for the auspicious event of Christmas. And every year, on Christmas Eve, I would crawl out of bed silently and place all the gifts on the huge dinning table so that it would be the first thing they would get to see when they get up in the morning.
However, there was one particular year when I had run out of money after buying my parents their cards and small gifts and realized that planning for this Christmas was not as authentic as before. I needed more gifts, for my lovely elder sis. On a creative streak, I took a shoebox and filled in all the things I had that I knew my sister would like, like a colored pencil, a beautiful brand new shoelace from my pair of new shoes, a handmade notepad cut and bonded from my school exercise book and old calendar paper, a nice handwritten card, my favorite pair of hairclips and so on. Than I had used crayons to color the shoebox and wrapped it with newspaper dipped in paint. My sister was overwhelmed but she laughed and laughed when she spied something in the box. In the midst of all the tiny lovely things, there lay her ink pen which went ‘missing’ a while back. In my zest of giving a Christmas gift, I had also casually returned her the pen I had ‘found’ on her table a few weeks back and didn’t know how to return it back without looking guilty.
Every time we recall that memory, I and my sister never fail to share a laugh. This brings me back to the present Christmas much older and wiser, knowing that beyond the cloak of festivities everyone loves to celebrate the joy of living and being with loved ones. And that’s what Christmas to me is all about.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.
