Christmas is a merry time for many but for one man, in his own words, it is “the happiest time in my life” and he continues, “no one in this world likes Christmas more than me.”
Birthdays and Father’s Day are rarely celebrated by Ivor Thompson but when it comes to Christmas in Guyanese terms, “he goes to town and back” with the celebration. He has appropriated his birthday and Father’s Day as “my days,” as he does not like receiving presents; he prefers giving. But his family finds ways to honour him, including giving him the gifts prior to those days.
“On those days they can’t find me. On Father’s Day I would go fishing or something and on my birthday I would spend the entire day at the hospital [doing a complete medical],” he said, adding that it has become such a tradition that his wife and their children now engage in that same activity on their birthdays.
“Because I like giving, I think Christmas is the best opportunity – I get to do it for more persons,” Thompson told the Sunday Stabroek in an interview.
He has had a few sad Christmases – losing some of his gifts and destroying his mother’s brand new curtains with a firecracker. His saddest, however, was in 2013 when he lost his sister—chief librarian at the National Library Gillian Thompson—by way of accident on Christmas Eve. In her memory, he shares books every year on that day just around the hour she died and this helps the family to still enjoy Christmas even without her around.
But putting those three Christmases aside, Thompson said he enjoys Christmas more than anyone he knows and he does so by making others happy and just having a merry time.
After one conversation with Thompson, one would quickly realise that he should have been a standup comedian, rather than an engineer at GTT.
Thompson was not clear on why he agreed to the interview, but likely it’s his way of bringing some Christmas cheer and encouraging smiles.
At Christmas time his home is the place to be as family and friends would keep trekking through much to his delight. He likes nothing better than preparing to feed everyone who graces his home, which he shares with his wife Vanessa and daughters Chelauna, Ivana and Ikia.
Thompson has had funny Christmases too; one being the first he spent as a married man, though at the time he did not find so. It happened when he attempted to awaken his wife on Christmas morning, after she had spent the night decorating the house.
“She had worked hard the night before, but I expected her to get up and make breakfast because I was accustomed to this on Christmas Day — everybody would get up and have breakfast together. I was shaking her to get up and she said, ‘I worked all night last night, everything is downstairs, you go and put the breakfast together’ and I said ‘No, it’s a family thing’ because, you know, I was just married and as a new husband I felt I was the boss,” Thompson said.
She refused to budge and in desperation, he threatened to wet the bed.
“She said, ‘no, if that is the case, look’ and took off the wedding ring and I cried out loud…,” Thompson said, laughing, adding that his wife did give him permission to tell the story once he told the entire story.
He called his brother, Colin Thompson, but got no sympathy as he was told, “‘Every wife takes off her ring at some point, you got it early, expect it another two or three times’ and I said, ‘Bannas what you telling me?’ because I was thinking I just got married in September…”
Thompson did not get his Christmas breakfast that year, but neither did he get his ring back another two or three times as his brother had predicted. The couple also stopped decorating on Christmas Eve, and began making sure it’s completed one week before so that on the big day everyone is relaxed.
That first Christmas is now a much told story that brings laughter to the family; their children are always in stitches at the part where he cried.
‘My mother-in-law’
Those who have Thompson as a Facebook friend would know about the chronicles of his mother-in-law. Some may scratch their heads at the stories, but all Thompson was prepared to say is that his mother-in-law is real and while she is not his Facebook friend his children keep her up to date and there are even times when she comments on a post or likes another.
“It might not be real but I just like having fun,” he said about the mother-in-law chronicles.
He informed that one of the reasons he loves his mother-in-law is the fact that when she returns on holiday at Christmas times her suitcase is filled with goodies.
“She brings the food! She brings ham, ribs, she said it’s a shoulder of pork—everything she brings,” he said, his face deadpan so that it was difficult to say whether that was just another of his chronicles. “I enjoy her cooking too, she can cook,” he continued, praising his mother-in-law Joycelyn Duke; small wonder that he was early at the airport to pick up and her arrival was shared on Facebook.
He recalls that food was always a big thing in their home at Christmas, as the family was big; his parents had 11 children.
His habit of sharing numerous gifts at Christmas time came from his mother who always told him to write a list of all his friends and she ensured that they all got a “little thing, even if one got a pencil and another a sharpener.” One year, he had an unfortunate experience as he believed he had the most gifts of all the children in the street. He visited some friends (all brothers) to show off all of his gifts and with the help of their mother they each coveted a gift.
At the end he just had about three gifts “and I guess I cried, because I use to cry bad; I never really used to get licks yet I was always crying…”
He can remember one time when he got lashes at Christmas – the time he destroyed his mother’s Christmas curtains.
A neighbour had given him a firecracker while his mother was entertaining some overseas guests and he thought it wise to “jump them” by lighting it and throwing it into the house.
“My mother’s curtains were nice with a darker back and mesh front… I heard the big noise upstairs and I thought they were laughing so I went upstairs all jolly thinking, ‘I catch you all’ and there was this big hole in the lady’s curtains,” he related.
The visitors saved him because he got his lashes after they had left. He believes that had he received them immediately after the act, his derriere would still be feeling the effects.
Lesson learnt though as Thompson disclosed that he has never purchased a cracker nor has he encouraged anyone to do so.
Apart from the celebrations at home, Thompson also enjoys helping to prepare the schools he is associated with—Kiskadee Kids, Blue Sackie and Harpy Eagle—for the Christmas season and ensures they have Christmas trees and do carolling.
