Christmas tends to bring out the crazy
in people. Not just in America, but in Mozambique as well.
For one, Christmas here is more a bank
holiday than a month-long build up to an event involving food,
presents, family, lights, and movie marathons on basic cable. Here
it's a day of no work and usually some nice food. It's not full of
movies and songs and TV specials that haven't changed since the time
baby-boomers were kids. This is due more to not only utter lack of
disposable income but also that culturally, Christmas is a Christian
holiday in a culture that doesn't have a thousand years of history
around the holiday. Heck, Christmas isn't even celebrated on the same
day depending if you're in Egypt or Greece or Russia or elsewhere.
But really, at their root, there are
many things about celebrating New Years and Christmas in America that
just don't make sense. They are arbitrary days chosen to celebrate
something (the turning of the calendar and the birth of baby
Jesus insane shopping deals). Both come with their equally
strange traditions that have nothing to do with actually celebrating
what it is they are actually celebrating. You ever actually used a
nutcracker that looks like that? Put stockings over the fireplace?
Put a tree inside your house for goodness sake?! Have you seen
Bethlehem? There is an absurd lack of 6 foot tall douglas firs there.
It's the only month during the year when eggnog is acceptable and if
you don't stay up till midnight on December 31st there is
something wrong with your “holiday spirit”.
I'm not being a Scrooge here. I
genuinely love Christmas, being together with family, all the food
associated with it, the weather, the lights, the sounds. As much as
people decry commercialism or the hijacking of Christmas, at least in
my family we get together to celebrate God's love for us and give
gifts in recognition of the gift that Jesus is to us. I love New
Years too, but the reason is because it is the second most important
sports day of the year. I associate Keith Jackson with being the
sound of the holidays more than Bing Crosby. Because really, I can't
think of a single New Years tradition in my family other than waking
up early, never leaving the sofa the whole day, and watching “the
grandaddy of them all”.
Mozambique has lots of traditions for
the holiday season too. Much of it is co-opted because the Christmas
holiday itself is co-opted from a European tradition. Here, the week
before Christmas is accompanied by getting all the food ready for
your Christmas meal. Maybe something special like spaghetti, a goat,
beef, cheese, (sometimes all together, there's no real basis for
deciding what food can go together). There is no modern Christmas
music. Actually, I don't think there is any awareness that there is
such a thing as music specific to Christmas because I've heard Michael Bolton
sing “Santa Claus is coming to town” on a radio top-ten-most-played countdown in May.
It also involves paying almost twice as
much for those things as you normally would because that's how the
laws of supply and demand work. Yes, there are laws regulating price
gauging, but they are toothless and really only apply to staple
commodities like rice and beer. Seriously. People go to jail for
raising price of a case of beer by even a cent but can get away with
doubling the price of cooking oil.
Nevertheless, price hikes are expected
and most people just take it as the cost of celebrating. Everything
is shut down for the day (and with Christmas on a Tuesday many things
will be shut down most of the week) and people have the day to relax
and be with their families and celebrate that fact. New Years is much
like this also, except it full of some absolute crazy superstitions.
America has the saying/sentiment that
Christmas is the time of peace on earth and good will toward men.
Whether or not that is true on a large scale, at least on an
anecdotal level, people find the good in their brother, in their
neighbor, drop a dime in the Salvation Army. You might also get
dejected when you think about that dude that totally took your
parking spot after you waited five minutes for it.
Here in Mozambique, sayings/sentiments
abound even when there is no great evidence for it. As we approach
the end of the year people are constantly worried about getting sick
or dying because, as everybody here knows, this time of year is full
of accidents and sickness and death. On some level, a lot of it is
kind of like the athlete that tries to pump himself up before the
game. People like to say how difficult this time of year is so that
when they get to January First they can breath a deep sigh of relief
and celebrate that the bad has passed them over and they made it safe
and sound into a new year.
Statistically, more people don't die or
get sick in December than any other month. In fact, looking at just
getting sick, the most cases of malaria happen between February and
April. Its just one of the things that for some reason stuck, like
eggnog. You can drink eggnog any time of year, but you can only buy
it at Christmas. Do you know hard it is to buy eggnog in a grocery
store for your Fourth of July party? Impossible.
So as we eagerly await the New Year
when sickness and death will magically pass away, I wish you tidings
of comfort and joy (and a great deal on your new flat-screen TV). And
early and hearty Merry Christmas to all.
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