'Twas The Night Before Christmas

I had no idea what to expect out of this Christmas season. I occasionally would ask people what was done here for Christmas but the answers were usually vague and not terribly helpful so as the season approached I was still in the dark as to what was about to happen.

The first Christmassy things occurred when I spent my Saturday with my host parents in two absolutely packed grocery stores buying food for Monday. This marathon shopping trip, which took about six hours from start to finish, netted us a lot of food, some fire crackers, and an artificial Christmas tree.

Saturday also marked a crisis point for my Christmas. I had been told by a few different people in my family that there was no tradition of gift giving in their family. Since I had received the information from multiple sources I was feeling pretty confident in my decision that I was in the clear and would not need to find gifts for the numerous family members (this also would have been difficult because people come and go with some regularity, especially during the holiday season. There would have been no way of knowing who exactly required a gift). On the evening of the 23rd, however, I thought that, just in case, I should ask my host father one last time. "Oh, yes, we do gifts," he said. As my heart palpitated I asked, "so should I have gifts ready for Christmas?" The response was yes. Shoot! I was told that gifts would be done on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. This did not give me a lot of time to prepare.

After much frantic thinking I developed a plan. I had enough things to cover myself for the rest of the family, I figured, as long as I could get a soccer ball for the little boys. So on Christmas Eve before church I went to the market in search of a soccer ball. None was to be found. It was time to move to Plan B. I figured I would give the boys some Chicco biscuits (cookies) with the promise of a soccer ball to come on Tuesday. The problem was solved, at least temporarily.

The Christmas Eve church service was pretty much like any other, although much of the singing was familiar Christmas songs. These, however, were translated into Nyanja. Fortunately, they all appeared in the song book and so I could easily sing along, even if I wasn't always sure what I was singing. The sermon, I presume, was something Christmas related but I can't be sure because I didn't understand any of it (I busied myself reading the short New Testament letters).

After church I was dreading the gift moment. It never came, however. The rest of the day passed as if nothing was out of the ordinary. It must be coming on Christmas Day, I figured.

There was a Christmas morning service but I was assigned to stay home to cook. Males don't cook in Zambian society, but I had made my family a "Canadian" meal once (spaghetti) and they asked me to cook them a Christmas dinner Canadian-style. I was a little disappointed to miss the Christmas service - maybe this was where a Zambian Christmas would finally reveal itself - but when those who went returned 5 hours later (from a service that was supposed to take an hour) I was glad that I had been assigned to stay behind. We had searched high and low for a turkey but none was to be found so I made roast chicken, stuffing, cooked beans and carrots, and seasoned potatoes. One interesting side note is that we have no cooking dishes but pots so everything had to be stuck in the oven in pots.

I finished cooking at about 13:30 and just as I was leaving the kitchen the girls of the family came in and started to cook. In addition to our chicken dinner we also had plenty of rice, beef, pasta and sauce, potato salad, cabbage salad, and a cake. While waiting for this food to be prepared we did what Zambians love to do - watch TV. Some programming was OK - the South African adaptation of Dickens's "Christmas Carol" was well done. Others, such as a half-hour infomercial on a local grocery store were less exciting. We ate at about 16:30ish, a long wait after having breakfast at 9:00!

In the evening we dropped off a family who had visited for the day and then settled in to the TV shows we watch every week day. One of the boys even asked me to tutor him with his Grade 7 Social Studies. I was shocked - here it was Christmas Day and he wanted to be taught! I told him to wait till the next day.

Back to the gifts. There was no moment of giving. No one gave any one a gift either big or small. So at the end of the day I gave a gift to my family as a whole - a Christmas book from Canada - that was very much appreciated.

Christmas, therefore, was pretty much a normal day. The only difference was that I was home all day instead of being at work. By the end of the day I was so happy, though. Normally I experience joy because it is Christmas. This year I experienced joy because Christmas was finally over. The days preceeding it had been pretty tough as far as homesickness goes so I was happy to have it done with. I could finally move on with regular life.

While Christmas might have been a bit of a let down, I'm told that the real celebration is at New Years. Since I am not one that usually does a whole lot for this occassion I am sure that I will get more than normal. Even if Christmas here is nothing to write home about, I'm thinking that New Years will be and am really looking forward to it.