They wish everyday was Christmas.

This post is deliberately timed for this period, the festive season. For the past twenty minutes I have been struggling to sit down and type this because I was asked by.. (you guessed it).. my children to help put up the Christmas tree at home. What is Christmas, by the way?

A definition in Wikipedia says "Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated generally on December 25 as a religious and cultural holiday by billions of people around the world".  When I grew up, I also knew of the same reason, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I still hold the same belief except that I now believe that it is a commemoration of His birth, not on 25th December but on a different date. I will leave you to argue and squabble over that as it is not the reason why I sat down and started writing this article. Yea, I indeed said I have always known Christmas to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but the most important reason, in my childhood, was that it was the time I got to wear a "new" shirt, and my next "new" shirt would be 365 days later, if at all I was fortunate enough to get one.

This was about 20 years (or more) ago. My first brand new Christmas shirt, or new shirt, generally, was in December 1986 when I was eleven. I had worked on a part time basis at a nearby farm picking millet (a cereal crop widely grown for food or beverages). I saved all my earnings to buy a new shirt. I asked my uncle who usually travelled the city (Bulawayo) if he could buy me one. It was blue in colour, and on the label it had "100% Cotton, Made in USA," written on it and there was an "M" which at that time, I had always thought it represented my name. "How did the people at the shop know my name"? I always asked myself. You are probably asking yourself how or why I still remember all that detail. My shirt was a special possession for me, it was the first real new shirt and the fact that I had used my own money that I had toiled so hard for to buy it, made all the difference. I had bought that shirt just at the end of the August school holidays, so I had a good 3 months to be trying it, looking it in detail and even smelling it. It smelt like America indeed, whatever America smells like. After trying my shirt each day, I would read the label and whatever other print was on it, I still couldn't believe it belonged to me, oh yes, the new shirt.

That year I had my best Christmas ever. On the big day, I woke up as early as 6am to have a proper bath. It was not me only who was up early, as usual, the whole family were up doing their bits and pieces to make the big day a success. Christmas was the only time we could eat bread with butter and jam without any sanctions, no one really cared how many slices we ate, oh, I loved Christmas! After the shower, what shower?, after the bath, I put on my new shirt and my only pair of old shorts that I used for school and special occasions like church, torn at the back, leaving all the behinds for everyone to view. I had no shoes. Who cared? I did not care either, I had a new shirt. Time seemed to be moving too slow for me because I wanted to go out to show friends my new shirt. Breakfast time came and the whole family sat down and feasted, but I was in a hurry, I just wanted to go. At about 11am, I left home to meet my friends, most of whom were from the same school as I was. They too had new clothes, but did I care? I had a new shirt. A blue shirt, with a label written "Made in USA". I felt like I was on top of the world. I just thought everyone was looking at my shirt, that, at this time, had its collar stained because i had tried it more than a 100 times before Christmas. I did not care. I had a new shirt.

Christmas day was quickly over and it seemed like it was only 4 hours. The following day, normally the Boxing Day or St Stephens Day (Ireland) or Day of Goodwill (South Africa), was back to normal life for us. It was time to go and plough the fields and herd the cattle, again. Although we could still have a few food left-overs from Christmas Day, that was the end of it, until the following Christmas. The good thing for me was that it was not the last time I would wear my new shirt though, it would now be turned into a school "uniform". the brown one that I had been using the previous "school year" was now just as good as a piece of rag, so this one came in so timely. For the whole year in 1987, whenever I looked at myself wearing that blue shirt, memories of a great Christmas still lingered on.

This was another Merry Christmas for me in 1990, at the age of 15.

Now that I have a job and live in a country, that, in my opinion, has Christmas everyday, I realise how lucky some people and some nations are. What I was saying above may sound like a ferry tale yet it is reality for millions in continents like Asia and Africa. As I was driving home this evening, almost all the houses on the way were flashing bright colourful lights and other decorations. Oh yea, it's not just the Christmas feeling, you can see it's Christmas. All those Quality Street tins of sweets and chocolates that are so abundant everywhere, and most important of all, Santa, best known as Father Christmas in my part of the world is delivering presents to all the children. I do not even remember getting any present in my growing up years, neither did I ever see nor hear of anyone receiving any present, yet people still enjoyed Christmas. Now my 3 year old boy wants an XBox360, whatever that is, as a present. What! I never even got a pencil as a present for Christmas. That does not mean I will not buy my boy his desired present if I can afford it, but at the same time, I have to make him (and his sisters) aware how lucky they are to at least afford a daily decent meal that some people in some parts of the world only afford once a year, at Christmas.

With the little they have, or from nothing at all, people in Africa make Christmas a very special day to remember. It is all about appreciation of what they have, if at all they do, but most importantly, they appreciate life. Oh, forgot to mention that I later found out what the "M" in the label of my shirt stood for. "Medium", the size of the shirt.