Hive-Naija Engagement #3 - Christmas Traditions In Nigeria

We'd go to church in the morning on Christmas day and I'd be dressed in the clothes my mum had bought since September that I'd be fantasising about. Everyone gets to see the Christmas hair that had been hiding under scarfs and we commend each other's looks.

As a pastor's child I usually got gifted more money than the other kids in church and that was the highlight of my Christmas. Then I'd still get more from aunties and uncles later in the day. I get nothing less than 3k and that was big money. Same every year till I was like 12 and was too big 😭

I think one reason I never travel is because of my family and the time we spend together.

For reference I am the last child of six and we are only two staying at home with my mother.

Our Christmas tradition is pretty simple, we wake up in the morning, I enter kitchen with mumsi after grumbling that I didn't come to this life to suffer (I do this every year) and that she should call her other children, I then spend some time cutting and slicing vegetables while she cooks and then I leave her to go to church.

After church, we continue cooking, and my siblings and their families start coming in.

We usually host friends, so they start dropping in also (over 30 people) which is stressful cause I have to serve food.

We serve food, alcohol comes in, music is playing and everyone is dancing, making noise and gisting and it's pretty great.

Some years if I have the time I go visiting my friends after but I think the most important part of my tradition is getting Christmas dash, yes I am 23 and I still get Christmas dash 😆

I don't think I remember much of my childhood. I do remember that every 24th we go to the Vigil and then the cooking begins the next day. I love food a lot so, you can imagine how I pray for Christmas everyday.😂 Then my father would buy oversize, but my mum always got the perfect one. The next day I'm the fliest guy in town. 😅

These days, I'm not so keen on Christmas again. I only look forward to meeting the family. Eating and drinking and making Mary.

I birthday is two days away from Christmas and my dads is one. The feast usually start from then. My father would get me a the giant coca-cola drink of over 1Litre or it's equivalent. Then he'd get biscuits and stuff. Omo, everywhere stew. 😂

Those days don gooooooooooo

As a Muslim we don't celebrate Christmas but I always look forward to Christmas because of our numerous Christian families and friends who will flood our house with ori shiri shi Christmas rice, chicken and drinks.

@funshee your 300 Ecency points contribution has been received! should I add it to this week's prize fund or next week's?

As the last child of 8, I never got to enter the kitchen to do anything until I turned 10. That was the year my older sister left for the UK so I had no other choice but to step up and assist. Before then, every Christmas day, I would wake up, bathe, dress up, eat food that I didn't know where it came from and then my 2 older brothers and I would go out and take pictures somewhere on the campus or one of our much older siblings would take us out to fast food or something.

We would then visit relatives. Every year we visited my uncle who was a king. The man, for some reason, was very fond of me so he would always dash me more money than my brothers. As a matter of fact, every relative we visited on Christmas day would give me more money than my brothers' coz they always found me cute.

Eventually, after my sister left, I began to help my mom by chopping vegetables while she cooked. I always ended with multiple injuries coz I wasn't meant for that life. Then I would get dressed in the clothes I didn't know my mom got and then head out visiting relatives who would still dash me a lot of money. I was a rich little child.

I also found out that for the most part of my childhood my mom used to get my Christmas clothes from the UK. Either my dad would send it or she would send someone travelling there to buy them. Some years I would have up to 3 or more clothes.

Right now, nobody send me. I no longer just chop vegetables on Christmas Day, I do the entire cooking. After that, I package the food in takeaway plates for people who come in briefly or I stay in the kitchen and serve the guests who come in. I usually do this for the entire day or until @khaleesii comes around to take me out of the house. At least that's what I'm hoping will happen this year lol...

Christmas doesn't sound festive to me. It sounds like work...

E be like sey an me type pass.

In my family Christmas rituals start on the 18th of December there about. It starts with my parents going to the market to buy foodstuffs that would be enough through out the festive season.

Next we would all storm the market to get our Christmas shoes and clothes.. Curtsey of my father.

On the D-day there's surely going to be knockouts, Rice, chicken, drinks.

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You this every 25th in my house everybody must be present. I don't know maybe there's something about that full house.
Then my mum will do something special like that egusi and pounded yam not the poundo yam type ooo.The type she pounds herself, she believes that rice will be very common and so to make the day special for us pounded yam and egusi will be just the best meal.
That pounded yam de taste different maybe because of the atmosphere I don't know lol

I cannot forget those old memories with my friends.

HOW WE DID IT THEN
Before 25th of December, I and my friends would have erected temporary hut where we would meet to eat together
WHAT EXCITES ME THEN
The excitement was so real that you could see it visibly by our behavior. Especially when Mum has bought our Christmas clothes and shoes. Sometimes one would ran to his friends to whisper the good news of new clothes and shoes. What of if dad could afford to buy goat plus foul, 🕺🕺🕺 aaaayaayaa, running straight to tell your friends. Eating together in our hut in village is another joy, we could know whose mumsy soup sweet pass 😋
Wearing our clothes to move from one place to another brings the joy to the peak. Well wishers would give us money which we shared together.
Another excitement was that most of our brothers that travel to the west would have come back and everywhere bubbling 🕺🕺🕺🍷🍷🍷
**
DO THEY EXCITE ME AGAIN**
Not really again, life na turn by turn as one grows older responsibilities want to kill person ooooo🤔
The only thing that excited me about it now is that Jesus Christ is worthy to be celebrated.

Sadly I don't celebrate christmas and I don't have any childhood Christmas experience. I have actually never celebrated Christmas my whole life but I have seen others do so... I have seen others go to church early in the morning on Christmas day and they come back cooking Christmas rice and chicken. In fact if you end up not cooking rice, it will look as if you are the poorest man on planet earth.

They often go on the extreme to make sure they buy Christmas clothes and rice.. Some travel to their villages for the celebration.... I think this is all I know concerning this tradition.

The Christmas period was something I looked up to as a child, it was the only time of the year that every member of the family will get to be together. I always looked forward to the monetary gift every Uncle and Aunty will give to me, my Mum will collect the money and promise to keep it for me only for me to ask her weeks later and she will start reminding me about all the food I have eaten and how beautiful my Christmas cloth was, that woman run me correct scam sha but no wahala.

Hmmmm... Impressive stuff.

That cloth buying shaaaa... There was a time that it never felt like Christmas is happening until I see new clothes shoes and whatnot. The best part of the whole thing is whenever travelling is involved. We will just carry overload to Village and be forming township boys 😂😂😂.

Issues!

Serious Issues... Lol.

That was then shaaaa... I was serving as a Corper last year so, I celebrated Christmas without Rice or meat or stuff like that. Not that I can't afford it, I was bedridden and too weak to lift a finger. Hehe.

This time around, I will be traveling on 21st from Ibadan to Anambra. That's where my family stays and I plan to visit Onitsha Main market on 23rd. Hehe. To get some stuff. I also have some interstate travel plans during this season, but one thing I never do is to leave my apartment on Christmas day. I do it at home. This time around, I will do it with my family and on 26th, I will visit Amusement parks with my siblings.

That's it ooooo.

BTW, rice must dey. You know nau, rice with assorted living (chicken and co) things on top 😂😂😂.

This year was fruitful for me and I won't stop myself from Celebrating.

My dad loves Christmas, he's the only one in the family that takes it personal 🤣. What stood out for me was the new clothes. I remember taking my bath with my Christmas shoe and rubbing Vaseline on it,my mum beat shege comot from my body that day 😂
The Christmas dash amongst 4 other siblings was survival of the fittest so we'd race to share the food in the neighborhood especially to one Baba Chika, that man was very generous 😂

Its the food for me... We eat a lot and do parties every other day of the month even new year but there is something about Christmas chicken and food.. It's always so special and exciting...

We always use to have varieties, swallow with different soup, enough meat, rice and salad

OMO it's the food for me o

Wao! Nice. Christmas is a thing of joy and worth celebrating in my house. Tho we might not go out to celebrate but trust me it is always fun at home because we got lots of friends that are coming around to celebrate with us and we get to jollificate together..

Na banger I miss pass.. .

But as I grew I started going out to tell people the reason for the season, not really preaching 🤠😍..
I just have a way of gisting with then and turning it to the word of God. If you ve never won a soul, Christmas is a good time to. Trust me.
Oh yeah..
Village travel during Christmas.. Hahaha. We sometime plan to go to the village and chill.. But it turns out, work no dey finish.. Hehe.
But its cool seeing extended family and being united again.
Lool..

For the most recent years.. I ve always been on-call on Christmas days.. And so same for this year.

We go dey alright. 😅

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Most part of life, was in the village. So growing up was full with fun and doing village activities. Christmas period is the perfect period for fishing in the northern part of Nigeria where I came from. There is plenty of leisure time at this period as it is a harvesting period and most of the crops have been harvested at this time. Pounded yam, is favorite food at this period since yams at This period is in abundance. In the evening after coming back from fishing, we group ourselves in age grades and go the farm to cook our pounded with fish caught, leaving the girls at home.

You see those Christmas clothes that we have to enter into the room to test them every two hours, and the joy that fills our heart knowing we will be unveiling those clothes on that Christmas day, is another feeling entirely. It was almost like a bad luck for you have injury at this period. Having injury, especially at the leg at this time is surely a spoiler of the Christmas for us, because how are we going to wear shoes with plenty light with injury at the leg, so every one is careful not to have injury at this time.

The Christmas eve is actually the fun day. From 10:00 pm of the Christmas eve, we drum and burn waste tyres. The burn tyres provide warm and light as we stay out throughout the night shooting knockout and Dancing. we move from house to house playing drums and singing. In the houses where we visit, we are giving money or the meat the are frying or fried to eat before leaving the house.

Christmas is beautiful.

This topic brought back memories from way back.

THEN
We don't celebrate Christmas due to our church stands on it, and as a kid we usually felt left out of such a glorious season, until GOD decided to take matter into His hands concern our family, am sure you'll be wondering how God took matter into his hands, well it happen that my mum gave birth to two of my brother on the 25th of Dec with just 2years apart, is God not wonderful!!! which mean while others are celebrating Christmas, we'll be celebrating birthdays, at least half bread is better than non.

One of the christmas memory I can never forget in my life was the first day I'll throw banger(knockout), that evening I alongside my childhood friends Niyi and Rilwan were hidding behind a car to throw the banger, unfortunately for us while I was panicking, the first banger I'll ever lite and throw in my life fell into the chest pocket of a police man, Thank God he was able to remove it through the help of his police friend before it started exploding. Then the punishment began, since we're still kids and can't be arrested, the police officer beat he'll out of us and then took us to our parent, my friend Rilwan parent floged us then transfer us to Niyi's parent for further beating, we thought that was all until my parent came back from church and someone told them about the incident, they all gather us for the final set of beating. Ever since then I vow never to near anything banger and till date I've not.
Just to chip this in as well, I remember as a kid I don't use to get Christmas cloth, but one faithful year, God enter into the heart of my father and he brought a christmas cloth that year, the cloth as the pictures of 2pac engraved on it. Something like the image below

I wear the cloth for several years so tey when the cloth start to dey fed, 2pac wey dey look front before, he started looking up towards me like, Baba free me na

NOW
Am I still fancinated by what fancinate my then?
Obviously the answer is NO, though I was not fortunate to get half of all I wanted during Christmas as a kid, but life is in stages, and in this stage of my life, I'm more into accumulating money rather than spending it, beside all those stuff have little or no value to me now.

Christmas used to be really eventful for me. My mom is a seamstress and this period is when the gets emergency orders. So I'm mostly helping her with some of the clothes.

24th night we get home at midnight and boil Christmas chicken. We then go to bed and wake up early enough to start cooking.

We usually have my uncles come around on Christmas day and as typical Edo people, they always want pounded yam and ogbono. My mom does the pounding, neither I nor my sisters can pound go save our lives.

We spend most of the day listening to them gossip about other family member and always ready to "task" them before they leave. Fun times.

Growing up, Christmas used to be the best season of my life. I mean the new clothes and shoes were enough reason to make us happy (my sister and I). Plus we always had these plastic eyeglasses that made us feel like the madams of the house.

I remember the times my parents bought live chickens. My favorite activity was removing the feathers after they must have soaked for a bit in hot water. I remember that every Christmas period, my mum would hide the fried chicken or meat because of me na, the ogbonge chief of meat theft, I had no equal. I even developed this method of scraping bits and pieces from each meat in the bowl so that if you count again, you’ll get the same number. Only the meat would keep shrinking in size. Lol! Naaaaaah, I stole too much of my mum’s fried chicken abeg. And, no I haven’t changed.

Ehen! My mum has not still returned all the dash money my uncles, aunts, and family friends gave me. I remember holding 5 #100 notes to bed, I woke up the next day to my mum telling me a rat had stolen my money. Omo! It wasn’t funny at all, I cried shege.

Then we’d travel a good distance to our family house the next day, 26th to continue the jolliment with relatives. This year though, with work literally eating up my whole time and draining every ounce of energy I have left, I haven’t exactly given Christmas a lot of thought. Besides, Christmas has not exactly been the best without my sister all these years. I’ll probably spend this year exchanging pleasantries, sleeping, eating chicken, and remotely working. Hopefully, a miracle happens to make it fun this year.

Christmas then was fun. And it’d begin with the harmattan which smelled like Christmas.

A couple of weeks before the 25th, we’d go get our measurements taken for our ankara clothes. Then soon, we’d see our foreign wears and shoes.

The Christmas shows and movies on television would even add to the festive spirit.

Then on the 24th, we’d get bangers and ‘bisco’ from adults in the compound. Bangers for the older kids and bisco for the younger ones.

On Christmas Eve, when all the girls would have got their hair done, we’d stay up late chatting and playing games outside or in a particular neighbour’s house.

On the 25th, there’ll b lots of cooking and laughter in the house after mass. And a Christmas movie would be playing on the TV screen. Then after all the cooking, washing-up and eating, everyone will likely sleep till late afternoon or evening when we’ll then sit and watch a show together. Then, we’d speak with relatives and family friends on the phone. We generally just relaxed in the house on the 25th.

It’s on the 26th that we’d go visit relatives or family friends.

These days, Christmas is a whole lot different and not as fun as it used to be. I wonder how this year’s will turn out.

Being an adult makes me realise how much I miss being a child during the Christmas period. By now,I would have had my outfits and shoes set for Xmas. The Xmas light,the decoration,the color,the air,everything blends. Merry Christmas in advance everyone.