I miss being at home for Christmas. A week before Christmas day, mama and I would put up the Christmas decorations all around the house. The plastic Christmas tree with the fake snow, the fanciful lights, the blow up Santa, the balloons! We had the whole lot. Without the decorations it would not feel like Christmas. Those were the little things that I have come to associate with Christmas and this is no different in most Ghanaian households, and I guess it’s the same for most parts of Africa. Households, offices and streets are decorated accordingly. However, I have been thinking about this over the years and it all seems well out of place. Why the tree with white dots all over it? Why Santa on a sleigh? Why was the stereo playing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…” on a bright sunny day in December? Santa would be drenched in sweat in that red and white suit and poor Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, I don’t think they can survive the heat and we do not even have any chimneys in Ghana for Santa to come sliding through. Most houses in Ghana have big fob off walls around them. On top of the walls are spikes of broken bottles and barb wire and behind the massive metal front gates lies one angry growling dog. Now I wonder how Santa is going to make it through to deliver his goodies.
It’s clear our idea of Christmas has been hugely influenced by the many Hollywood movies we watch and songs we hear. Snow, the Christmas tree, Santa Clause, the reindeers – all these are Western branding of Christmas. It goes without saying that these things bear no relevance to the true essence of Christmas – the birth of Christ. And it does not snow every Christmas as the movies would have us believe! Surely we should be putting our own Ghanaian/African imprint on Christmas- what we associate with it and how we celebrate it. I think we should swap the plastic trees for coconut trees and the snow for our white sands. Let’s associate Christmas with our beautiful beaches. Christ himself was a bit of a fisherman so I guess he would quite like this idea and most Ghanaians spend their Christmas holidays at the beach anyway. We can make the Christmas season a big sales season for our magnificent beaches.
So how do we start this change? Well it’s a bit too late to do anything this year but I will make it a point to be in Ghana next Christmas. I will suggest to mama to bin her fake Christmas tree and replace it with a miniature coconut tree grounded in a pot of sand with all the lights and other décor. She will think I have gone bonkers and so will anyone else who comes to the house but I will explain my idea to them and hopefully it will catch on. I think it also a good idea to write to the television stations to get them to do the same in their studios. They may or may not but at least it will get them thinking. It will be a big step to rebranding Christmas in our own unique way. Well, I will stop rambling on now, hope you all enjoy the Christmas season and to the good people in Ghana I wish you not just a happy Christmas but a Happy Sunny Christmas!
Afehyia pa ooh!!!
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