Hiding from Christmas

THE EDITOR: It is with dread that I write this. Every year Christmas rolls around and having given my family and relatives the expectation of being invited to a sumptuous buffet one day for the season, this year I am expected to do the same. However, it gets progressively tedious as each year passes and I no longer look forward to the season with pleasure. When I was young everything was a new and exciting experience. The family was easier to get along with as everybody were in similar low financial bracket, and the competitive spirit was not there. It was like each household chose a day to entertain the rest and that resulted in the to-ing and fro-ing with the same people for the entire holidays. It was alright then, as the total figure was easy to manage, and friends were few so as to be irrelevant at Christmas.

But then children within the family grew up, married and had their own offspring. And so the figures grew as one couldn’t leave out the children. On top of that, friends became relevant and just as one associated with them during the year, one wanted to invite them at Christmas also. Impossible task, as family continued to follow the tradition of before. Once a member of the family dared to suggest that one day be arranged where everybody will meet, bring all their food and drink contributions and enjoy each other’s company for that day, while freeing up other days for friends and others. The idea was vetoed by a couple of the die-hards and so we fell back into the old routine. Most of us are not happy with the current arrangement, but have no choice in the matter.

Then there is the cost factor, where salaries simply do not meet the cost of food, decorations, curtains, gifts, etc, which everyone has come to expect as evidence of one’s status. If a person does not want to take out a bank loan and had not saved up for Christmas, then one can only imagine the quandary. Merchants have had a history of jacking up prices as their idea of Christmas spirit. So, somehow, we have to keep up this extinct tradition and appear to like it. Come January everybody gone about their business and housewives/women are left wondering how to keep alive till month end. This year, I feel like the end of the line is fast approaching and I feel rather rebellious. When my husband broached the topic of Christmas entertainment, I snapped at him (menopause probably had a hand in my behaviour) and rightly so. Men have a tendency to be unable to see further than the bottle of grog, glasses, ice and other groggy men at his table, while expecting food of various descriptions to appear as if by magic.
“Ent ah wok an’bring de money fuh yuh, yuh ent went and buy de goods?”, might be their attitude and contribution to the whole episode.

Can anybody see my point of view here? I know that there are many people in America who would give their right arm for some family and they dig out whatever friend or relative they have to spend thanksgiving with. But I am sure they have not had the Trini family experiences. For people like me, some of my relatives have not evolved to fit into the modern Christmas scenario and they never will. Every year I feel like going to some remote place to spend Christmas, but my luck never brings this to pass. I have to revisit the same old, same old, each year like watching a tired rerun of some old movie, getting the same frustrated feeling as soon as December starts. Right now, I do not know where to start. When I think of the cost of gifts and groceries, not to mention the braving of traffic congestion to find myself where I can buy certain things, I feel like crawling into a hole and coming out in January.

VIOLET SAMMY
Port-of-Spain