By David Papannah
If you spend enough time around ‘grown’ folks, more often than not you would have heard them longing for ‘the good old days’, despite the challenges and lack of modern technology, and especially at Christmas.
But why were those days the best? Particularly, the Christmas season? Well, several grown-ups told Stabroek News that ‘back-in-the day’ there was a lot more excitement and happiness and anticipation while preparing for Christmas.
For Eleise Williams, a 58-year-old retired clerk, growing up in the community of New Amsterdam during the festive season the atmosphere was vibrant with expectation. She recalled the sound and colour of the Christmas masquerade, the delicious scent of pepper pot and black cake wafting through the community, the last minute cleaning on Christmas Eve night and the stampede from the bedroom on Christmas morning to see what “Father Christmas” had left in the Christmas stocking. Christmas Eve was “the most busy day of the year… everybody would go out on the road and pick up their last minute items and then rush home back and start putting away the house.” The road closed off at 6pm.
“This is when the banging of nails and the scrubbing of stairs would start. All the final tiny bits would begin… this was very special because the tension to finish would build a momentum that just keeps you anxious and excited for Christmas morning. As a child I would some time fall asleep whilst helping to put up decorations and the new curtains,” Eleise said, adding that her parents would tell her and her siblings to hang up their stocking “Father Christmas, coming soon” and send them off to bed.
While she and her sister looked forward to Christmas, her mother was “a New Year’s person.” However, she and her sister set about changing her mindset when they were teenagers.
“We would begin cleaning and try to persuade Mommy to get in the Christmas spirit. It was a long and hard challenge but she came around,” she said with a smile. Eleise’s fondest memory of Christmas is the masquerade.
“I had an uncle who used to live in Nurney Village Corentyne. During the Christmas season like around the 17-20th of December he and some other villagers would assemble and dress as masqueraders and parade by foot from his village to New Amsterdam,” she recalled. Eleise said the troupe of masqueraders would take several days to reach the town.
“So wherever night caught them they would beg lodging and stay there for the night… Next morning they would get up have breakfast and be on the road again,” she said. According to Eleise, children from every village would run out and take part in the parade; following the masquerades to the end of the village.
“Everybody would be following Mother Sally and the bull… dancing to the music…It was fun times” she said. Eleise further explained that when her uncle stopped in New Amsterdam he would lodge at their home and she, her sisters and nieces were afraid of Mother Sally.
“We use to be afraid of Mother Sally… to get up and go to the washroom we use to be afraid! So we would keep it in… Those were wet bed time” she said, with a hearty laugh.
“After opening the presents [on Christmas morning] we would run to the streets to show off our new toy to one another” she said. Children would also “dress up” with their new close and walk from one neighbour house to the next sharing and receiving “goodies.”
‘House hopping’
While the women busied themselves in the kitchen preparing the Christmas lunch, the men would be “house hopping.” Eleise explained that one man would go over to a house and he and the other man would take a shot of alcohol and have something to eat, the two would then go to another house and repeat the custom.
“When they are finished they would stop at the last man’s home and have their drinks and have a merry time… We would make music with spoons and bottles and comb and spoon… those days were good…
everybody use to live in love, there was no segregation between us due to race,” she said.
Centenarian Olga Elgrin told Stabroek News that the best thing about Christmas is the delicious food. During the festive season she would purchase decorations and different types of meat to make her garlic pork and pepper pot. The elderly lady, of Fryish Village Corentyne, said on Christmas Eve she would be “quick quick” decorating and beautifying her home with new curtains while listening to Christmas carols on the radio.
Asked about her favourite Christmas carol she hummed “Joy to the World”. Olga also shared that one of her cherished memories was of carollers singing at every home on Christmas Eve. She indicated to Stabroek News that “nowadays” there are hardly carollers walking around in the village.
Anzie, one of the Olga’s daughters, said she often participated in the Christmas concerts at school.
“The concert would be a family event… persons would go and enjoy their children performing… Nowadays I don’t hear of parents being a part of Christmas concerts in school,” she said, acknowledging that the times and traditions have changed.
‘We had to make merry with what we had’
Both mother and daughter told Stabroek News that on Christmas Day over the years, they would attend church early in the morning and then return home to prepare lunch. Afterward, they would sit at the table and thank God for what he had provided.
A downcast Olga said she missed going to church and helping in the preparations for the season. However, Anzie said the family would do their best to make their mother’s Christmas memorable.
For septuagenarian Tangah Ramsarran, Christmas is a time of love and unity which is why she has always enjoyed the season. She recalled that while growing up she had a lot of the fancy things: toys and new clothes for herself and brother, though she admitted that there were some lean times where apples, grapes and other foreign delights were not usually part of the Christmas menu.
“We had to make merry with what we had,” she noted.
Tangah recalled that she and her brother did different cleaning chores during the season and even after the house had been cleaned, her mother would not put up the new curtains, rugs or decorations until Christmas Eve. She also remembered that her mother would make rich Indian sweet meats for the family to celebrate with, instead of the factory made treats. Tangah, herself a mother of six, said that all the cakes would be baked on Christmas Eve and she was taught the fine art of making ‘burn sugar caramel’ for the black cake at an early age. She was also taught to make other traditional Christmas meals like garlic pork, pepper pot, sorrel drink and ginger beer.
“Sometimes I pray for Christmas Eve to come and go because it was a lot of work… We would be doing work late into the night… just to get our home fixed for Christmas Day… but there was so much joy in doing it. Especially when I had my children helping me on Christmas Eve,” the woman said.
According to Tangah, as a teenager she was forbidden from experiencing the Christmas Eve night on the road as her father was strict and firmly believed that “Girl children need to stay home.”
However, she said her first Christmas Eve in Rose Hall Town was when she got married. “In those days Christmas Eve would be simple and merry… no loud music on the road… just some nice Jim Reeves Christmas carols. The carols do make you feel the Christmas spirit,” she added. Although she no longer goes out on Christmas Eve night, Tangah said she’d still try to get a glimpse of the chaotic scene on the road. On Christmas Day, Tangah said she’d wake up early and take her children to church. After church she said they would catch a chicken and a duck from the pen and cook it for lunch.
“We had to use the Creole chicken and ducks… almost everybody had a few in their yards”, she said, adding that there was nothing like “white fowl” in her day. The woman said she would then share out small parcels of goodies to friends and neighbours. She said as a child her
family would also make jamoon and cane wine for the Christmas celebration and that her father and his friends would indulge in consuming some ‘bush rum.’
Tangah said what she likes most about Christmas morning is going to church early in the morning and greeting every one along the way from church to home.
“It is so nice… you feel the love that God gives to human,” she said. The woman further said that she enjoys seeing everyone showing kindness, being happy and caring for one another during the entire season. Like every other senior citizen, Tangah too said she wished that she could relive ‘the good old days.’
