In the diaspora, Christmas and the end of year season is being observed by every Guyanese and West Indian. Guyanese are of varied ethnicity — Indian, African, Mixed races, Portuguese, Amerindians or native Indians, and Chinese and people of a mixture of the preceding as well as Europeans like English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish , among others. West Indians are of the same stock with some Spaniards and Jews and a few other ethnic groups. There are hundreds of thousands of West Indians in USA, Canada, and UK. There are more people of Guyanese descent outside the country than in Guyana. (Size of the Guyanese is West Indian diaspora is not known but Guyanese alone are estimated a million in USA, half a million in Canada, quarter million in UK and Europe, quarter million in the Caribbean, Brazil, French Guiana, and Suriname and thousands more elsewhere). Growing up in Guyana, Christmas season has always been the most favorite time of the year for all, especially children, regardless of ethnicity and faith. It was and still is the most wonderful time of the year filled with fond memories, customs, traditions unique to the Guyanese or West Indian culture — welcoming Father Christmas, masquerade bands, fun, laughter, food, family, friends, toys, gifts, playing, new movies, horse racing, new clothing, etc. Communities and ethnic groups, including non-Christians, developed their own ways of celebrating the season. During this time of the year, people lived well. There was no animosity or tension among the different religious and racial groups.Everyone was extra kind, loving, generous. Race didn’t come in the way to help others. It was a magical time of year when everybody became friendly and loving. Whether they observed Christmas or not, people were in the hustle and bustle of the season with everyone making preparation to close out the old year and welcome the New Year.
From Vatican City (my third visit in multiple trips to Italy with the first in 1985 on a scholarship studying comparative religions), observing Christians paying tribute to their God and people shopping, wining, dining, sightseeing and having a wonderful time, my thoughts, reflections, and memories harped back to growing up in rural Guyana and celebrating the season. Everyone in Guyana celebrated the season regardless of financial status. The experiences have been etched deeply in memory and has become unforgettable. Christmas was peaceful and entertaining; today, there is so much hate and violence on account of differences and power play. Communities and countries are being destroyed for power and resources. Modern, cultural invasion from North America have outrun the country. Rising standards of living and gifts from North America from friends and families have changed the Christmas landscape during the time time I grew up in the 1969s and 1970s in Ankerville, a sub village of larger Port Mourant, once the largest Plantation and village in Guyana, home of the great Cheddi Jagan, our hero.
I remember as a youth the various measures taken to prepare for the season. Homes were festooned with simple decorations except for white managers’ houses on sugar estates. The inside and outside of the home was spruced up. Everyone had to play their part in what was really a huge spring-cleaning at the end of the year. There was the cutting of grass and bushes, trimming of plants, sweeping and cleaning around the yard, whitewashing of trees base and curb, and stones around the house and plants. People swept their dirt yards clean of dust with their coconut broom. Every house got a fresh coat of paint or white lime. There was a friendly competition of best looked home. If not cleaned, people said unkind things of your home.
Inside the home, bed sheets were washed or changed, oftentimes replaced by fancy patterns that is holiday related. Cloth had to be washed and starched and ironed stiff in all their neatness and creative glory to look great on different surfaces. Every single piece of curtain or drapery had to be taken down, washed, and prepared for hanging unless replaced by new ones. Live seats, cushions, seats and sets were also cleaned and with coverings that give a ‘Christmassy’ feeling. Crochet and or purchased table cloths and flowers and other decorations were taken out from storage for the countertops and tables; ditto runners for the dressers, linen for the window blinds, and related decorations for every other such thing that are required for sprucing up inside and outside the home. New carpets were bought or the old one properly cleaned to look new. Wooden floors were polished and kept spicy and span. Flowers were used to decorate trees in front of the house and also placed on tables.we made our own toys in school or at home to play with. We made our own decorations at school and our own Santa Claus. At school, we colored decorations and cards and took home for loved ones.
Crockery, cutler, and glasses in the cabinet was taken out, washed, and put out for use. Special basins or buckets were cleaned for preparation of cakes, breads pastries, etc.
This was the time for making Christmas fruitcake, black and rich with fruits and rum, and the delicious sponge cake, both of which involved a lot of work. The kids were tasked with washing the (salted) butter, groaning and complaining, but it had to be washed for baking the cake and bread as per the elder’s directive or else no cake or bread, bun, pastry and ginger bear (sorrel) for those who didn’t help. And we get to lick the bowls with the leftover mix. sibling fights to get a share of the cake drippings. Most cakes were made with regular unsalted butter and imported or local dried fruits. People preferred foreign fruits like prunes, cherries, citrons, currants, raisins, etc. They were so delicious.
The cake and pastries and the bread with cheese went well with sweet drink or pool aid. That was a time when drinks were sold in small glass bottles that were recycled. Red drinks like kola champagne and cream soda were my favourites. One bottle of drinks was shared by three or four mouths unless you buy your own drinks with your holiday ‘frek’. Besides aerated drinks, there was home made drinks like ginger beer, sorrel, mauby. Sorrel was always plentiful this time of the year. These drinks are available in stores over the last couple decades. The adults engaged in drinking spirits including beer and wine. Females hardly drank spirits unlike today. Boys didn’t touch alcohol unlike today. We cut a good cut arse from the adults (any adult) if we got caught smoking or drinking spirits. It was only soft drinks. Most families served kool aid, pine drink (made from the skin of pineapples), mauby, and ginger beer to go with local tasty cake baked over a fire side; very few people had gas stoves. Chula or wood stoves or firesides were common and widespread.
At the Anglican or English School I attended in Port Mourant, a largely Indian school, we (Hindus, Muslims, everyone) were forced to attend church. (African kids went to nearby Scot school in Rose Hall or Roman Catholic school in Portuguese Quarter; many Indians also went to those two schools. All schools were Christian denominated; Hindus and Muslims were not allowed to run schools. At Anglican school, we were handed sheets of carols to be sung and innocently sang them without understanding the purpose and meaning and that in so doing one was embracing Christian values; same was true of Scot and Catholic schools. We practiced or rehearsed singing carols in classrooms. And in the church in the mornings, we sang carols including ”Oh Holy Night,” “Away in a Manger,”, “Star of Wonder, “12 Days of Christmas”, “We wish you a Merry Christmas”, and others. In early grades, we brought a few cents and an egg as requested by our classroom teacher. And on the last day of school, the teachers organized parties. We were served with cakes, soft drinks or pine drink or lemonade, toys like whistles, dolls, balloons, among others. There was usually also a school concert of singing, caroling, Bollywood dancing, plays, poetry, magic, etc.
For those who could afford it. Christmas lights were hung on everything. Electric Current was not reliable and many could not afford lights or current that was very costly. Almost no one had an imported Christmas tree, but some homes strung lights on windows, inside and outside. The bushes and trees were not spared. We were just fascinated by the lights at some homes as we walked around the village.
Christmas was a time for special music and masquerade bands. Radio stations played special Christmas songs not only western music including (reggae, calypso) but Indian Christmas related Bollywood songs. The music started three weeks before and continued till a day after New Years. Masquerade bands made their way in the villages (Ankerville, Free Yard, etc.) as well from nearby town of Rose Hall. They played music instruments sang and pranced through the streets of Rose Hall town onto neighboring villages. People got into the infectious rhythms and gave them coins for a wonderful performance.
One of the biggest and most profound memories is going out in Christmas Eve to shop for late hour gifts and enjoy ice cream at Harris store in Rose Hall. The small town was bright. There were actually lights. There was a sea of colors related to the season. The atmosphere was electric and vibrant. There was the enchanting and or sweet smell of so many goodies — aromatic smell of channa, black eye cakes, sponge cake, ice cream, hot peanuts, and drinks was mesmerizing. The atmosphere was reverberating with a cacophony of sounds from all directions. Vendors shouting to market their toys and noise crackers or light or even foods. Many visitors came from far away for snacks. Many also went for midnight mass at the Anglican or Catholic or Scottish or Presbyterian church and or visited nativity arrangements on the church yard. The churches hosted nativity plays or scenes that the publish visited. Christmas Eve was a time when boys were allowed to roam the village late at night without being flogged. On Christmas Eve, we were told to hang up socks and pledged to behave well and take an oath never to curse again. On Christmas morning, there was a gift in the socks – a cricket ball or money or some other item.
Few had a fridge which worked with kerosene. Lights were a luxury for the poor. So people prepared fresh foods. It was a time to purchase special items for holiday dishes — goat, mutton, duck, chicken. Some families killed a goat or sheep and shared the meat with neighbors and families and friends. The meat, usually mutton, would be cut up and seasoned for a few hours, then cooked as a spicy curry with potatoes which Guyanese love. Dhal was a must in almost every celebration. Rice has been a staple for over a century. Phulourie and or bara and boiled channa were served before lunch or dinner and available throughout Christmas and New Year Day.
Families and friends visited each other unannounced bringing cakes and dhal puri and curried mutton or duck or chicken. I remember African friends from Rose Hall visiting Ankerville and other parts of Port Mourant, an almost exclusive Indian village. They engaged in drinks and snacks. I remember very well shops selling varied brands of wine imported from Madeira, peardrax, cydrax, nuts, chocolate, apples, grapes, cheese, and so many other items that were popular during the season.
For adults imbibing, there was only Banks Beer and Russian Bear rum, some other local brand rum, Diamond Club Whiskey, but no foreign whiskey, and bush rum or moonshine. Youngsters up until the 1970s were absolutely prohibited from consuming alcohol and smoking. I didn’t taste beer until I was 17 or 18 and found it horrible.
There was a bellyful of sheer happiness from a simple meal of dhal, rice, curry. dal puri, bara, phulourie, chowmein, cake, and drinks, etc. If lucky, we had a taste of wall nut and a small slice of red apple and a grapp and a piece of Cadbury chocolate from England. Boxing Day and New Year’s Day celebrations were a repeat of Christmas Day. On Christmas, and or Boxing Day, and or New Year’s Day we gathered around the radios to listen to recorded messages from families overseas hoping our parent’s name would be mentioned in holiday greetings. The messages came from USA, UK, and Canada. There was no TV until the late 1990s . During this period, families received lots of Christmas cards from North America and UK and elsewhere from loved ones. Monetary and material gifts also came from abroad to fund simple celebrations.
On Christmas Day, we went to the cinema to watch a newly released Indian film. On Boxing Day, there was horse racing. In the other days, boys would go playing cricket or play around the village with their toy guns or wood guns that they made or play with yo-yo. In the evenings, we burned and spun steel wool and star lights as our local fireworks.
Oh yes, it was a wonderful, joyful time of the year. It still is. We were satisfied with the little we had.
However you celebrate the season, whatever customs and rituals you engage in, make every effort to enjoy the family, friends and have fun and show respect for others. Please also share something with the less fortunate as we did in the old times.
