My favourite season is here

CHRISTMAS, MY favourite season of festivities — eating, drinking, music, merriment and family togetherness — is here once again.

No one knows the correct birthday of Jesus. No date is given in the Bible, so why do we celebrate it on December 25? The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25 was in 336AD, during the reign of the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine. A few years later, Pope Julius I officially declared the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on December 25.

So, the greeting must always be “Merry Christmas” and not “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays”.

We are celebrating the birth of Christ.

Unfortunately, the popular pre-Christmas activity of window shopping on Frederick Street, Portof- Spain, or on High Street, San Fernando, has become a casualty of increasing criminal activity.

In years long past, preparations for Christmas began early in December with the cleaning of the house, with painting walls, varnishing furniture, scrubbing or manually polishing floors (no mechanical floor polishers), cleaning window panes using newspaper and kerosine (no glass cleaners), hanging new lace curtains and laying new linoleum on the kitchen floor.

Later came the decorating of the artificial Christmas tree, mounting the nativity scene, hanging balloons, coloured lights and other decorations. Then there was the making of pastelles, black cake, sorrel and ginger beer, boiling the ham in a cooking oil tin over a wood-burning fire outdoors, shelling Tobago pigeon peas and baking the turkey.

As children, before World War II, we looked forward to the arrival of family members from New York bearing gifts. They travelled by boat which remained anchored offshore (there was no deep-water harbour) and passengers were landed via tender at the lighthouse jetty. Over the years the “elderly uncles and aunts” who came for Christmas have passed on and the younger family members prefer Carnival to Christmas.

The Christmas season for Trinis began with the appearance of street vendors selling apples and grapes, the playing of carols by the radio stations, decorated shop showcases, the launch of the parang season with the singing of songs pertaining to the nativity, sung in Venezuelan Spanish, accompanied by a group of quatro and drum-playing “parranderos”.

Formerly, parranda or parang was a pantomime with the parranderos arriving at a selected house to find the doors closed. After rendition of the appropriate “agrenaldo” by the parranderos the door was opened and they entered. Food and drink were provided and the party continued until the parranderos departed for another residence.

This went on into the early hours of the morning. It is reputed that some parranderos did not return home for many days.

In patois-speaking Maraval, the pantomime was known as “creche” but both pantomime traditions have died out in Trinidad but continues in Venezuela, Colombia and in other Latin American countries, especially in the countryside. In the Philippines a similar Christmas pantomime is called “panunuluyan” and in Mexico it is “posada”.

Recently in Trinidad, pure parang has been bastardised by a lively and popular style of music called soca parang.

There cannot be a Trini Christmas without pastelles, black cake, sorrel and ponche de cr?me. In neighbouring Venezuela and in other Latin American countries, pastelles (“hallacas”) are also a Christmas favourite and variations of our ponche de creme are known as “rompope” in Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize and other Central American countries. In Cuba it is “creme de vie”, in Puerto Rico “coquito”, and in the Dutch Islands it is “advocaat”.

Another Christmas favourite in Venezuela is “pan de jamon”, a large loaf of bread baked with ham, bacon, olives, capers and raisins.

Delicious.

A Merry Christmas to all my readers.