A friend of mine, British, says she misses Christmas. Apparently at this time of the year over there the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus stalks the atmosphere. And if you look hard enough every home may begin to acquire the rundown glory of that famous manger.
Now she’s relocated to Nigeria, to Abuja, and all of that anticipation, that boundless glee is gone.
“Maybe it is the snow,” I suggest.
She disagrees. It isn’t just that. Some other element, intangible mostly, is absent. She doesn’t quite feel the gaiety. The discussion takes a while, like arguments with an ineffable core do, and then I, too, begin to agree with her.
But other than the incessant films featuring Caucasians travelling to some resort and forgetting a kid in New York, or African-Americans surrounding a cookout, what exactly am I comparing this unsurprising lack of reindeer to? One word: childhood? Another: Abuja?
Both?
Childhood seems so far away the spirit of Christmases past so far gone, they are exactly what the word means: ghosts. And I struggle to hold on to a particular one childhood memory that may convey the expectation and express why the feeling of loss is acute.
But what exactly is it about Christmas anyway? There are debates as to its relevance and on television, foreign television that is— Nigerian television has more worries— debates go on about the secularisation of Christmas, the removal of Christ from Christmas, the merchandising. And in some ways that is exactly what this is about. Otherwise it should be sufficient to embark on a pilgrimage, the short version of which would be the trip to church to ponder on the dilemma of life and the afterlife. After all, it is a religious festival.
Fortunately, (or perhaps unfortunately,) the world is caught up in the celebration: from shylock banks to exorbitant restaurants, to indecent drinking holes, there are Christmas lights; while telephone networks, terrible wherever you go, send text messages in the middle of the night urging you to download a Christmassy song, or furnish your callers with same. You wouldn’t bet against a hooker wearing a fluffy red and white hat, dispensing un-Christian gifts to customers without considering race or religion.
The idea of a Christmas for all is so ingrained that accompanying friends in taking photos of Christmas decorations (which the reader would find elsewhere on this site,) I half expected to see the dome of the omnipresent National Mosque immersed in its majesty with some lights too.
The celebration of Christmas a week to the end of the year seems like a coup for Christians— even the unbeliever may take stock of his year, his happiness at surviving approximating that of the believer. Whatever difference may exist, religious joy isn’t so much different from irreverent gladness. And Wizkid and Jingle Bells may be played together.
For Abuja, but for banks, it is entirely possible to not realise it is Christmas. They own the many coloured lights reflecting on asphalt at night; as Christmas gets closer scowling tellers would adorn their heads with Santa’s caps and if you’re lucky, the scowls may be replaced with faked jollity. But we will take it. Without them December and June would not differ, and the famed joy to the world would remain a song lyric, lacking in concreteness and atmosphere.
Over here, like elsewhere, Christmas becomes a marketing convenience. You get the feeling if one bank forgets to switch on dancing lights, others may not bother either. But it is a contest, a contest Zenith Bank branches easily win, pity the lights don’t quite come on till after work hours. Perhaps that in itself is symbolic: the niceties are not for customers, but for the bank's image. There is no establishment as unashamedly capitalist as banks. They send you, and everyone else, a birthday text. They become Christians in December. They become Muslims by Sallah. In between, they maintain an easy atheism.
Nevertheless, it isn’t enough. Institutions like banks do not reach out to you driving around the city, or in your office or even at home. Christmas as an adult insists you find your own happiness: in your job, in your kids, in your continued perpetuation of the species.
Abuja, Scrooge-like, does not encourage the season. You will be dreaming of a white Christmas at your harmattaned peril. What else is there to say for a city, where the most impressive collection of lights this season, unchanged throughout the year, is along the Kubwa and Airport expressways where streetlights go on for a distance, throwing parabolic leaps in the sky, defying darkness?
Thus the difference, to my British friend, is a genial insistence versus a weary nonchalance: Cheery London says, "Merry Christmas," or else.
Chilly Abuja hisses, "Merry Christmas," or not.
Now she’s relocated to Nigeria, to Abuja, and all of that anticipation, that boundless glee is gone.
“Maybe it is the snow,” I suggest.
She disagrees. It isn’t just that. Some other element, intangible mostly, is absent. She doesn’t quite feel the gaiety. The discussion takes a while, like arguments with an ineffable core do, and then I, too, begin to agree with her.
But other than the incessant films featuring Caucasians travelling to some resort and forgetting a kid in New York, or African-Americans surrounding a cookout, what exactly am I comparing this unsurprising lack of reindeer to? One word: childhood? Another: Abuja?
Both?
Childhood seems so far away the spirit of Christmases past so far gone, they are exactly what the word means: ghosts. And I struggle to hold on to a particular one childhood memory that may convey the expectation and express why the feeling of loss is acute.
But what exactly is it about Christmas anyway? There are debates as to its relevance and on television, foreign television that is— Nigerian television has more worries— debates go on about the secularisation of Christmas, the removal of Christ from Christmas, the merchandising. And in some ways that is exactly what this is about. Otherwise it should be sufficient to embark on a pilgrimage, the short version of which would be the trip to church to ponder on the dilemma of life and the afterlife. After all, it is a religious festival.
Fortunately, (or perhaps unfortunately,) the world is caught up in the celebration: from shylock banks to exorbitant restaurants, to indecent drinking holes, there are Christmas lights; while telephone networks, terrible wherever you go, send text messages in the middle of the night urging you to download a Christmassy song, or furnish your callers with same. You wouldn’t bet against a hooker wearing a fluffy red and white hat, dispensing un-Christian gifts to customers without considering race or religion.
The idea of a Christmas for all is so ingrained that accompanying friends in taking photos of Christmas decorations (which the reader would find elsewhere on this site,) I half expected to see the dome of the omnipresent National Mosque immersed in its majesty with some lights too.
The celebration of Christmas a week to the end of the year seems like a coup for Christians— even the unbeliever may take stock of his year, his happiness at surviving approximating that of the believer. Whatever difference may exist, religious joy isn’t so much different from irreverent gladness. And Wizkid and Jingle Bells may be played together.
For Abuja, but for banks, it is entirely possible to not realise it is Christmas. They own the many coloured lights reflecting on asphalt at night; as Christmas gets closer scowling tellers would adorn their heads with Santa’s caps and if you’re lucky, the scowls may be replaced with faked jollity. But we will take it. Without them December and June would not differ, and the famed joy to the world would remain a song lyric, lacking in concreteness and atmosphere.
Over here, like elsewhere, Christmas becomes a marketing convenience. You get the feeling if one bank forgets to switch on dancing lights, others may not bother either. But it is a contest, a contest Zenith Bank branches easily win, pity the lights don’t quite come on till after work hours. Perhaps that in itself is symbolic: the niceties are not for customers, but for the bank's image. There is no establishment as unashamedly capitalist as banks. They send you, and everyone else, a birthday text. They become Christians in December. They become Muslims by Sallah. In between, they maintain an easy atheism.
Nevertheless, it isn’t enough. Institutions like banks do not reach out to you driving around the city, or in your office or even at home. Christmas as an adult insists you find your own happiness: in your job, in your kids, in your continued perpetuation of the species.
Abuja, Scrooge-like, does not encourage the season. You will be dreaming of a white Christmas at your harmattaned peril. What else is there to say for a city, where the most impressive collection of lights this season, unchanged throughout the year, is along the Kubwa and Airport expressways where streetlights go on for a distance, throwing parabolic leaps in the sky, defying darkness?
Thus the difference, to my British friend, is a genial insistence versus a weary nonchalance: Cheery London says, "Merry Christmas," or else.
Chilly Abuja hisses, "Merry Christmas," or not.
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