As a youngster growing up in Manchester Village with my grandmother, Christmas was always the best time around.
You knew that Christmas was in the air when the children started playing ‘tagga’. This was a game we played for rubber bands which were only available at Christmas. The boys, especially, would have small flat objects, (metal, wood, brick) and would throw these to “knock out” the rubber bands from a circle, about two feet in diameter, placed at an agreed distance (four, five or six yards away), depending on the age group. Each participant in the game would “pool up”, say, “two-a-pool” and whichever rubber bands you knocked out of the circle became yours. The throwing of the objects could be dangerous especially when there were five or six anxious kids waiting their turn, with their attention focused on the circle with the “pool” and not on the moving objects. I have a scar under my left eye to attest to this.
The pepper pot
This, my grandmother used to say, had to start cooking at least one week before Christmas day. It would only be officially pronounced as finished cooking on Christmas day. She used to say that the pepper pot had to “rotten” before it tasted good. I never waited so long for something that even the passers-by on the road could smell. It was simple; the family would all be upstairs, the pepper pot would be on the ‘fireside’ downstairs, and they would send me downstairs because my feet were dirty and might soil the preparations underway. I just helped myself.
Preparations
Preparations for Christmas day, for most persons, began with the scouring of the house, inside and outside. Those who could afford to apply a coat of paint did so. Those who couldn’t just scrubbed their boards clean. Christmas Eve was the final day for Christmas preparation. Floors were being given their final coat of polish. Butter and sugar were being creamed. Bread was being kneaded. And oh! I remember always wanting to taste essence, because it smelled so delicious, but the adults always kept telling me that it didn’t taste good. I couldn’t imagine something smelling so good and not tasting good and wondered why they didn’t want me to taste it. I had to. I did! And they were right. I never told them though.
Sometime after midday on Christmas Eve, the bread went into the oven followed by the sponge cakes and then the black cakes. In the meantime, the adults continued fixing and preparing. As the cakes baked, the aroma floated all around from the oven down in the yard. On Christmas Eve night the curtains went up, and when the lamps were lit it was a totally different atmosphere. You could hardly believe you were in your own home. Everything smelled different, the floor glistened and you were not even allowed to sit in the same chairs you sat in all year round! “You guh mash up them cushion and nasty ah floor.” You had to be content with staying in the kitchen or the bedroom. And even these areas looked strange, new sheets and curtains here as well, and then you had to bathe before you could go on your own bed. All of a sudden you can’t do this, you can’t do that; you can go here, you can’t go there. But then that how you knew it was Christmas.
We were always told that on Christmas Eve night before we went to bed we must hang up our socks – school socks – so that Santa Claus could put gifts in them for us. Santa Claus really loved us. He always filled our socks and left boxes with other stuff. I could remember one time I prayed for a toy gun (we used to have to pray loudly) and to my surprise Santa heard and put it right next to my bed. On Christmas morning, I told my uncle, who had come from Suriname a few days before, what Santa did for me, and he laughed. My elder sister never believed that Santa ever came; although he brought things for her too.
Masquerade
The masquerade used to be an integral part of the Christmas season. Men/boys used to dress like women with masks on their faces, beating old buckets, “tinins” (tins), and other objects, and dancing on the road and through the streets. I think it used to be on Boxing Day that everyone would gather on their “front landings” (verandahs) or at their gates to look at the masqueraders. Not me. As my sister reminded me – and my children – I used to be under the bed. There was the “long lady”. A woman, I used to think, with the height of two or three persons! “Me gah see this”, I used to say, but for some reason, I could not get close enough to really see her. My grandmother used to try to trick me by giving me the money to give to the masqueraders. I never gave them any. I never did get close to them. Me and the money always disappeared.
An elderly man in the area said things have changed a lot “even from 15 to 20 years ago”. He said children and even some parents did not understand the true meaning of Christmas. During his time as a child, if you walked past five homes you would have five bags with things inside from people. Everybody wanted to know that they would have given someone something for Christmas, but now people only want to collect; nobody is giving, he said. Front doors used to stand open, signalling that whoever wanted to could enter and be assured of receiving some ginger beer and a slice of cake.
He said there used to be Christmas parties, specially for children, and separate Christmas parties for adults. But now if there are parties, children are there as well as the adults so the children emulate their seniors and probably think they are adults too.
I can remember one place – Cox Disco. The proprietor, Harold Cox, old and bed-ridden now, never allowed children to purchase alcohol and cigarettes even if they were for an adult. Children were not allowed in and around his place unless it was kids party time.
According to Gavin Munroe, a Probation Officer, and a resident of Manchester, Christmas was a time when children – boys playing “R-Rio” with toy guns, girls with their dolls – used to have a merry time. They would go around buildings, bushes, hide and shoot the others before being shot. It was a time for gifts, fun, and play. Church members used to walk along the streets singing Christmas carols. As they went along others would join them, “and it used to be wonderful”.
There used to be concerts, “with real good actors”, displaying the birth of Christ, and singing lots of Christmas carols. Santa Claus, Munroe said, was only seen on a blown-up balloon. There were no “real” Santas then, you had to go to Georgetown where you might have been lucky to see a “real” Santa. There was Christ in Christmas then, he said, and it was not as commercialized as it is now.
