IT IS A CHRISTMAS DAY

IT IS A CHRISTMAS DAY

The green spiral tree in the corner of the sitting room blinked repeated at the old man sitting on a leather upholstery double chair watching a late night television program when he heard several gunshots from the neighborhood. He glanced at the ornament wall clock hanging just above the TV set. It was 12 midnight, 24th December.
These were not gun shots; they were firecrackers ushering in Christmas. He smiled to himself and looked at the flickering lights on the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. It was displaying an incendiary of multiple colors of light. A Christmas tree; what is the significant of this tree to the celebration of Christmas? What is the origin of this Christmas tree? He asked himself and made a mental note to check it out on Wikipedia in the morning.
He sat back on the chair and looked at the Christmas tree blinking at him. Is this what Christmas has been reduced to, he mused: Decorating our homes with Christmas tree with shining lights to mark the day of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to the world.
As he watched the tree, his mind went off to another time and place when as children; they had ushered in Christmas celebration with funfair of singing and dancing in the village.
He recalled how everybody in the village would be coming back home from their various fishing settlement latest two days before Christmas. How they would be lining the waterfront waiting for the new arrivals with shouting and waving of hands.
They would then swoop on the canoe to help offload it, with the owner sharing out fish to them.
He could feel the air thick with the smell of the harmattan haze blowing at the trees and sky filled with white sheets of cotton bulbs blown from a giant cotton tree standing in the outskirt of the village.
The river which is always in milky color during the rainy season would be little brighter as the rain has stopped at the coming of the harmattan.
Then the children would gather together to cut palm fronds to decorate the church building for the Christmas. The whole atmosphere would be in a frenzy festive mood.
He stirred on his chair looking blankly at the TV screen. What has happened to our world these days? What is the meaning of Christmas celebration? What can the children of this generation tell you about the significant of the celebration?
He could feel the emotion they had put into the significant then, about Christmas. There was a wooden manger in the church. At about midnight on the 24th of December, all the children would gather at the church, and bearing the manger, would go from house to house around the village, singing, and dancing, announcing to the people that the Savior is born.
He closed his eyes and stretched his hands above his head to relieve the tension in his vein, stood up, walked to the window, and looked outside at the display of the fireworks.
Things are not the same anymore in our world. These are times when suspicious and dread fills every action, and situations are not what they pertained to mean. How many of these firecrackers are actually not guns shots by night marauders operating under the cover of the season to visit sorrows and pain on unsuspecting folks.
His thought wanders into the past when the celebration of Christmas was a time where families and friends become one. Food were cooked and shared and eaten together from house to house: yes from house to house.
How many people are now going around houses of their families and friends sharing and eating together without a forbearing or without serious casting and binding: yes, casting and binding in celebration of Christmas.
He closed his eyes again and seemed to see the faces of the children in the villages visiting one another, from house to house and village to village in the bond of Christ love.
“Jesus Christ, bring back your love again to your children so that they would be one with another, and with you and the father.” He prayed silently and turned to put off the Television set. HAPPY CHRISTMAS!