MY CHRISTMAS ALPHABET

Dec 29, 2008 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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Scrooge can keep his “Bah, humbug!” and put it where the turkey stuffing goes.  My own exclamation, if I had to think of one, would have been “Bah, hambug”.  My love for preserved pork, baked or boiled, cloven or, like me, spicy to the core, is legendary.  People hid their hams when they heard that I was in the neighbourhood at Christmas time. 

If you asked me who crossed the Alps on an elephant, I would have said it was “Hammibal”.  My favourite city in the whole, wide world was “Hamburg,” and my favourite British football team was “Westham United”.  I liked the “United” bit because we ham-lovers have to stick together, otherwise we would be in a fine pickle, literally hamstrung.

This is why, when someone sent me this explanation, taken from a children’s play, of CHRISTMAS through word associations with the individual letters, I almost Scrooged out into a resounding, “Bah, humbug.”  Look at this and tell me if this is any kind of CHRISTMAS:

We have a game of letters
Which we’re going to show to you,
And each will name his letter
As he holds it up to view.
I have an S—a crooked S,
It stands for sugar sweet.
And here’s an A for apple pie.
And M for good mince meat.
T stands for turkey, fat and brown,
We have on Christmas Day.
And here is S for Santa Claus,
And also for his sleigh.
‘I’ stands for icicles and ice,
And R for reindeer gay.
H stands for home and happiness,
And C for Christmas Day.

Apart from the gay reindeer, which makes it not just a wrong-side view of Christmas but one that is also back-to-front, the food is too bland and it leaves out several important ingredients of a genuine Caribbean Christmas.  “H” might stand for “home” which is important, and “Happiness” which is also important, but without ham, you might as well be in the street complaining bitterly.

My CHRISTMAS “C” can be Cake, preferably black, laden with “R” preferably strong and dark, and Currants and Raisins as alternates.  It can be Chicken which has become my main fare now that I have laid off the red meats, and Champagne, which I no longer stock even on Old Year’s Night.

“C” is also for “Cricket,” and there is a lot of it on during this period. My son Zubin and I stay awake watching, but with increasing frustration.  However, the one constant over the years has been Calypso.  No Christmas passes without Sparrow’s “Drunk and Disorderly” and Kitchener’s “Drink a rum and ah ponche-a-crema”. 

There is also “Christmas, Christmas, we wish you a Merry, Merry Christmas/ With the rum, darling have no fear/ Always remember, Christmas comes only once a year.”  Story of my life, I mumble, but that is another story.  

So, do you want to guess what the “H” stands for?  The sad fact of human existence is that if you want to be Healthy you have to give up some things. As the critic, Alexander Woollcott said, “Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening.”  In my case, the link between fatty foods, especially red meat, and prostate cancer is too much to ignore, and my bordering hypertension ensures that Christmas is no longer worth its salt. 

To paraphrase my favourite Shakespearean hero, Hamlet (of course) what used to be no longer is, and ham is not the answer, regardless of the question.

 “H” is health, although I would not mind adding a “W” for wealth, regardless of the consequences, given my present depleted financial resources.

“R” is for “remembrance”.  It has been a good long run, and my memory serves up extremely palatable fare —  roti freshly made by my mother, my friend Orland and I with some Black & White early on Christmas morning, eating his mother Beryl’s ham and his sister Daphne’s sweet bread, going from house to house consuming whatever was placed before us, and essaying occasional attempts at song, and coming home from midnight mass followed by early-morning drinking, tumbling into bed in high spirits and even higher expectations of what would follow.

The high spirits and even the remembrance can also be stimulated by the big “R” that summons up the spirits — whether white, dark, over-proof, or with a chaser.

“I” can be many things — my wife Indranie, my indulgence that has grown over the years, or even the increasing insight.  “S” is what I am catching these days.  In fact, with the present recession, there are a lot of people catching their “S,” or its plurality, “Ss”.

It can also be Scotch, the many varieties of which are in their glory during this season.  In Trinidad, there is a Johnny Walker King George V that sells for US$500.  Now that I am an Old Pa, with two little children to take care of, I stick to port and the occasional Irish Cream. 

“T” is for tomorrow which, regardless of today, is always something I look forward to.  “M” is for “music,” which we play. All the old favourites come out for an airing or hearing — the calypsos, Daisy Voisin and her parang, Scrunter’s “Piece of Pork” (the only thing that my health allows), Marcia Miranda and between bites a little King Swallow.  There is White Christmas and Green Christmas and even Blue Christmas, Rudolph and the pleasure that we’re Home for the Holidays. 

“A” is the arithmetic that we all do to see how much we can safely spend, and then spend too much anyway, and the assumptions we make about how we may be able to pay it back eventually. “A” is also for absent friends and family.  Then there is the second “S”.  Regardless of how bad things are, we are safe and sound. 
Our spirits are high.  We can Sing Noel, sing Glorious Noel and say, “Merry Christmas to you and yours, and a Happy New Year.”  May you, as Tiny Tim wished, have many beautiful days.

*Tony Deyal was last seen saying that, with the recession, even Santa Claus got fired. They just gave him the sack.

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