DYING TRADITIONS

Oct 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – Christmas is just about two months away. Guyanese are about to go on a spending spree, buoyed by an anticipated injection of funds from the government and healthy remittances from abroad.

Unless the Guyana Public Service Union is able to obtain an injunction preventing the government from arbitrarily imposing public service increases, public servants are going to enjoy a hefty paycheck for December, compliments of a retroactive increase for 2022. The money-transfer agencies are going to enjoy good business over the next two months and remittances increases from Guyanese overseas to their relatives back home.

All that money will be needed because local consumers are facing a backlash from high prices. While global food prices are reducing, the same cannot be said for local produce. The price for food, including vegetables, fruits, fish and chicken continue to place burdens on consumer.

Already people are talking that chicken is likely to retain for more than G$500 per lb. for Christmas and eggs possible for $100 each. These high prices threaten to spoil Christmas for poor Guyanese.

It is time for Guyanese to return to their traditional Christmas. Despite the hard times, which Guyanese endured under the PNC government, Christmas was always a special time because of these traditions.

These days, people wait much too late to start preparing for Christmas with the result that they fail to enjoy the Season. And Christmas is a Season which you have to enjoy. The best way to do so is to continue the old traditions to which Guyanese are long accustomed.

Most overseas-based Guyanese long for a traditional Guyanese Christmas. They miss the intimacy of the season; they miss the local cuisine; they miss the goodhearted spirit that characterizes Christmas back home; they miss the local parties and the fun of the season but most of all, they miss the simple things that remind them that they are back in Guyana. But most of all, they miss the radio which played no small part in putting everyone in the Christmas mood.

There is an online radio station in Barbados which begins to play Christmas music non-stop during the evenings from September 25th. It is called Sturges Radio, The Beat and is found on 104.1 FM online.

Christmas cards are out of fashion. Long ago, long before the holidays approached, the Guyana Post Office Corporation would remind Guyanese about the deadlines for posting their Christmas mail so that it can reach its destination on time.

There is no need for such reminders today because the number of Christmas cards that are sent out these days is just a fraction of what used to be sent before. In the old days, families used to collect dozens of cards and one of the things that used to be done with these cards is that they would be arranged into a lovely collage in the shape of a Christmas tree, which would be pasted on a wall, or simply strung up on a string.

Then there were the little small envelopes that were left by the postman and garbage collectors. Each home would be required to put a little something into each envelope as an annual token of appreciation for the services that were provided by the refuse collectors and the postal employees.

These employees received a fair bit of money at Christmas as a result of the generosity of the homes for which they provided a service. Today, the postal workers and garbage men still leave their envelopes and often they will tell you that when they hand these out, the residents ask what it is for. Many people do not know that they are supposed to leave a few hundred dollars in those envelopes. As such and when the time comes for the envelopes to be collected, it is often either empty, contain only “small change” or cannot be found.

That tradition of giving to these workers is being lost and it is sad because many of them are lowly paid employees and look forward to the little extra cash for the holidays.

Even sadder, are the masquerade bands that used to be such a treat over the holiday season. The masquerade dancers used to come out into the streets and strut all their creative moves. There would be a Mother Sally and a Mad Cow to scare the kids. It was a creative and cultural art form that was an integral part of Guyanese Christmas.

Today, what passes for masquerade is an embarrassment. A few kids poorly attired and with not much of the flair of the old bands, go out into the streets where there is moving traffic, stand in front of a vehicle hand outstretched soliciting a donation. This is not masquerade. The public is being shortchanged by these masquerade dancers. They are not putting on a performance. They are begging alms.

It is dangerous to have these performers on busy streets standing in front of vehicles. Someone is going to get badly injured one day and perhaps only then will the authorities decide to stop this dangerous practice.

Finally, there is the dying tradition of readying homes early for the holidays. As you go through the country, it is shocking to note that with just about two weeks to go before Christmas, many homes are still not decorated. Some are only now in the process of being cleaned.

This is quite unlike the old days when Christmas preparation began in the last two weeks of November as furniture was taken out reupholstered and polished, homes were cleaned and in some cases painted so that by the beginning of December, the new blinds and curtains could be draped and decorations strung up.

Today, people simply go out and buy new furniture and new blinds. They throw out all the old stuff and get new ones. No wonder there is so much garbage around, more than we can process. Yet there is within all, that longing for the old, that nostalgia that comes with remembering the past and observing traditions. Perhaps these changes are the price that we have to pay for modernisation, for social progress.

But perhaps also, when these traditions go into remission, there is really nothing left because what matters most is traditions, traditions, traditions.

But most of all Christmas meals were traditional – pepperpot, baked chicken, channa, sponge, fruit and black cakes and lots of sorrel, rum, wine and ginger beer. Perhaps it is time to revert to those simpler times which many feel were much better than these material times when people spend so much and enjoy so little of the season.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---