I loved cozy Christmas. It provided some of the most memorable moments of my childhood. I have lived and spent Christmas in many major cities on three continents. Enugu was the best place to be at Christmas. No other place came close.
The pre-Christmas preparations were celebrations before the main event. Tailors measured bodies for new and colorful outfits. With Colliery and Railways paying salaries promptly, parents bought foodstuffs as if a major famine was coming. We got new Bata shoes. Uptown children milled around Kingsway supermarket with posh parents and enjoyed Father Christmas treats. For downtown folks, Ogbete main market and street stores sufficed.
Coal City was a civil-service city. Prices and fares remained reasonably stable. Folks were generally decent. Christianity was not crazy. No one queued to get food handouts as in IDP camps.
Goats and chickens provided joyful melodies to the ears of humans who would slaughter and eat them. The Igbo did not kill cows haphazardly like depraved carnivores. It took taking of titles or a hero’s funeral to slaughter one cow and become ‘Ogbuefi’! Beef came from Nkanu butchers.
The midnight mass kicked off the celebration. Catholics were best at it with fervent fetishism. The slaughter of animals started early at dawn while children slept. We woke up to pleasant smells of fresh tomatoes, onions, and curry leaves. The washing of rice (destoning) was an art to behold.
On the streets, Erico angels twerked like ladies long before Hannah Montana mainstreamed it in America. Youngsters indulged in organized urban-masquerading crafts and preserved the decorum. Today’s urban urchins dishonor the tradition. Masked minions make monetary requests unashamedly and serenade some shameless sisters.
Ihe emebiwo!
(Things have fallen apart.)
Stories floated about the legendary Obiesie masquerade of Coal Camp. The bigger boys instilled fear with stories of mystic powers. One was more likely to get hurt while fleeing from mischief-making masquerades called ‘ịga.’ The Obiagụ Road carnival was the place for entertainment by an assemblage of masquerades: Ojiọnụ, Mgbadike. Ụlaga. Okwommà. Atụmma. Ijele. Ịzaga.
The beauty-full Ogemma or Adamma with her police-guard and palm-wine tapper (otenkwu) masquerades performed elegantly in neighborhoods. The children enjoyed the free street theaters. Occasionally, the crude but comical Biggie Belle masquerade appeared with its graphic puffed-penile projection and a flashlight without batteries, stimulating mock intent to violate any girl caught!
At the Iva Valley, the magical acts of Ezegirim provided enchantment and entertainment, an open opera. Although the magnificent masquerades from Udi (Agbaja) no longer featured during such street shows, stories swirled about the dangers of watching their indigenous magic. Pregnant and young females stayed away or watched from behind balcony barricades.
Christmas was a carnival in clean Coal City. Convenience stores sold assorted drinks, snacks, and sweets. Some men sit around beer/palm-wine joints playing boardgames and exchanging sarcasm-laden jokes called ‘njakịrị.’ Some engaged in egg-cracking competitions with hardboiled eggs of guinea fowl (àkwá ọgazị).
What is the craziness of Christmas that still grips folks on December 25? Christmas celebration was not just about the birth of Yeshua of Nazareth (later Jesus Christ). Christmas was not an original Christian feast. The pop, extravagant end-of-year harvest feast was held around December 17 and 25, depending on the perceived position of the planet, the winter solstice. It was called Saturnalia.
Was Jesus born on December 25? No. Does it matter? No! Some early Christian theologians mocked the celebration of Christmas as a European pagan ritual. As late as 1647, England under Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans banned Christmas as a pagan festival!
Th West commercialized Christmas to milk what was left of family annual budgets. The gift-giving, travelling, feasting, and sundry silliness have pushed the packaging to perch on the edge of exhaustion. The Covid pestilence imposed a slowdown. The Santa Claus saga or Father Christmas fallacy no longer impresses. I was at a huge mall yesterday, not one fat Santa!
The rush to return to roots is dying down due to terrible traffic gridlock, excessive hikes in commodities and fares, insecurity, village people, and abject lack of social amenities in rural areas.
I miss the Christmas spirit.
M. O. ENE
Afọ, Thursday, 12.25.2025
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