Christmas: Then and Now

I wrote to my friend about how my family spent Christmas in 2010. My friend commented that it had really been a Western Christmas I experienced. It was in fact correct. Actually, this is the Western Christmas we had only seen in Christmas cards when we were small. It was nice to experience it in life. The Christmas lunch at my former colleague Fanny’s place has always been special. We sort of feel the Christmas spirit when we go there with her family and many old relatives. It was nice to see old relatives dressed nicely, some in their 60s but others in their 70s and 80s, chatting and having a peaceful discussion. I think the feeling of that Christmas spirit is the most important thing, no matter where you are.

I learned that there was a big gathering at my home in Mabima this time for Christmas, and my mother seemed very happy with that. It seems Romesha, Banchi, Kanthi Punchi, and Nangi all came to my place for lunch, and they prepared food and carried it to my place (instead of my mother cooking 10 dishes for 25 people). It was Banchi’s idea, and I thought it was a fine idea. They have agreed to repeat this every Christmas on the 26th hereafter.

I was talking to Kellie about some Christmas experiences I had when we were growing up at Nayakakanda, Hendala. One of the most fun experiences was receiving Christmas cards. We used to receive Christmas cards from our friends, and lots of them in those days! But in those Facebook-less, E-mail-less, mobile phone-less, and even land phone-less days (at least for people like us), it was a great thing. Generally, I miss that culture. I remember the postman used to accumulate all Christmas cards and deliver them on Christmas Day as a bundle. When the postman got drunk after a few rounds offered by people, he would rest under a tree, and villagers used to distribute cards on this special day. I used to receive about 20 or more cards, and similarly for my sister and for the family. Altogether, we used to have about 40 or 50 cards. It was such an exciting experience to open them and discover who had sent them. This continued even during YCS time, and it was also exciting to receive a card from someone you admired or secretly admired. While I appreciate quick communications and Skype video chat now, I miss those times and experiences a lot.

The most memorable Christmases in those days were at Nayakakanda. Nayakakanda at Hendala was a very Catholic suburban village, so to call it. Our home was situated between two Catholic graveyards. Between the main junction and our home was St. Mary's Church, where we used to go. On the 24th night, at around 11 p.m., there was the midnight Mass. We used to go there, and usually it was a "cold" night with dew falling. Now, when I say cold, it must have been around 26°C, which was cold for us in those days. I could not have imagined the real cold weather we experience in Europe or Switzerland these days. So, on that night, you would see the road filled with people going to church. After the Mass at the church, we would come home and eat homemade Christmas cake and wine. Of course, my father would always prepare a line of firecrackers to be lit just at 12 o'clock at night on the 24th. This was something I always treasure. The sound of firecrackers. It would start a few minutes before midnight and last a few minutes into the early morning hours of 25 December. It was the nonstop sound of thousands of firecrackers coming from all directions. My father used to carefully select a long line of the noisiest firecrackers he could find. Often, the Thummullas, or the triangular ones, were the noisiest. One line would contain a hundred or more firecrackers. He would usually buy two or more such lines. He used to tell me they called this uninterrupted sound of firecrackers like a bamboo jungle caught on fire (bata kaleta ginin arang wage). Then, on Christmas Day at 12 noon, there would be another round of firecrackers, just like the previous night. Another five minutes or so of nonstop sound of firecrackers. There would also be morning services at the church at 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. At noon, we would have some relatives coming to our place, or the family would be having some specially cooked food. In those days, I remember chicken was special. While beef and pork were readily available for an affordable price, chicken was not. So it was a special day to cook a nice gan kukula, or village chicken. On some occasions during Christmas, we would buy a live chicken, and my father would take care of preparing this chicken before cooking.

Christmas was also a time to get new clothes. In those days, clothes had to be tailor-made by Vincent Tailor in Nayakakanda. We had to go and buy cloth for trousers or shirts from Colombo, or sometimes we would buy from the tailor himself. Then he would take the measurements and sew new clothes for Christmas for the males in the family. My mother would wear a saari. But my sister would wear a new dress, often made by a seamstress in the village. Going to Colombo before Christmas to do Christmas shopping was a big deal in those days. We would go to Main Street at Pettah, and my mother would buy ingredients for the Christmas cake and other cloth to make dresses for us. Sometimes shoes from, again, Bata, DSI, or P. G. Martins. My mother would also buy cheeththa cloth for Dollie or some others. She would also buy sarong cloth for my grandfathers (her father and her father-in-law). I do not remember buying that many other things. The highlight of this Christmas shopping was to have a special buriyani lunch at a restaurant in Colombo. Those were just normal restaurants, and this was one day of the year we ate out, and that buriyani tasted so special. And we would have Faluda, a sweet dessert with fresh fruits and syrup. We would then return home exhausted by the CTB bus. There were no private buses in those days. We would take bus no. 107 to Elakanda. We lived such a simple life in those days. We knew that our parents had very little money. But they made sure we all had new clothes and shoes for Christmas. We would wear them to Christmas Mass. Christmas would pass like this. We did not do anything special except those routine things. But those routine things were so special to us that we really enjoyed those events.