Christmas is one of the most popular festivals in the whole wide world of the human race. It’s of the Christian religion origin to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Over the years, it has become more than that.
Because of its timing, which is towards the end of the year, Christmas has evolved from the Christian celebration of their Lord Jesus, to a festive celebration as an end of the year ritual, to round up the year, and also being hopeful of having a wonderful time in the coming year.
I’m from a Christian background so Christmas to me has always been a top notch celebration in my family. We have, from my birth marked every Christmas celebration in my family, in fact, it has moved from a religion celebration to that of culture and a family ritual.
Christmas to my family has always been a close celebration in which we do celebrate at home with family and friends. That’s my parents' ideology of Christmas as they aren’t a fan of going public for such a celebration, they believe it’s a moment of love and should be homely celebrated. So more often than not, we don’t go visiting, we buy lots of things inside, cook jollof rice and pounded yam, enjoy it together for a year well-done.
One of my fondest memories of Christmas was the one when we did something different as a family. It was the year my dad finished building our house in the village and we were to spend Christmas holiday there, also being the first time my dad would be visiting in 30 years.
For reasons best known to my dad, he doesn’t allow us to visit the village, as this is also a very common thing among many African families. My suspicion will be based on spiritual security.
I was very skeptical but optimistic about this particular one because it will be the first time we would be celebrating Christmas in that location so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
When we got to the village, it was a wonderful experience, first the house was much finer than the one we had in the city because it was a recent design and upgraded equipment were used in building it.
I got to understand that Christmas means a lot of things to different people and families. I met many family members I haven’t met before. I don’t know them but they seem to know me by the way they call my name. It was a wonderful Christmas that I won’t forget, I was exposed to a different kind of life, culture and people.
Village life is very enjoyable during the festive period and i had a different experience and what I got to understand is celebrating with your family gives a different kind of joy and energy.
When I grow up to have my own family, I’d make sure I encompass the joy of family bonding so they won’t miss out on this.