By Muyiwa Adetiba

To all intents and purposes, the festive season is over. Another year with its expected twists and turns, starts in earnest on Monday. It is time maybe to reflect on what the festive season has meant to us over the years.

Growing up for me was fun and full of expectations; especially during the Xmas/New Year seasons. For one, it signified the end of the year and the expectation of a promotion to a higher class was always there and if you did well enough, of school prizes— mainly books— and a preferential treatment at home for the duration of the festive holiday. It meant older siblings coming home from different boarding schools. It meant rice with chicken or turkey or — at some brief point during that era— ram for the New Year. It was also the only period you were certain of new clothes and shoes.

I grew up in a fairly large compound with families who had children my age. There were games like ludo, football, -some athletics even- during the day, and tales, gossips, and more games in the evenings. A few masquerades were also likely to be seen along with traditional dancers and drummers.

This season meant a lot of food and families indulged themselves in different delicacies which they always passed round. Dishes were prepared and sent to parents while communal meals were prepared for kids. And if you were lucky to go on a food errand, it meant a few coins in your pocket.

But the greater excitement was the possibility of new clothes. Tailors worked feverishly to make clothes ready for the festivities and many were the children who got disappointed by their tailors. We also had families that pulled together to sew identical clothes for their children- a sort of ‘aso ebi’ for kids.

We kids invariably compared the outfits as we preened and showed off on the way to church. Those were the days my friend.

Then as I grew older and fled the nest, the season took a different meaning. As a working journalist, it meant corporate lunches and dinners. It meant calendars, cufflinks, paper knives and hampers as Corporate Affairs managers tried to out do themselves especially during the oil boom period.

It meant going from a midnight service straight to the dancing halls of clubs and private parties. Many were the times we dispensed with the mid- night church service completely and popped bottles on the stroke of the hour wherever it met us. The more romantic ones chose the early minutes of a new year to toast a special partner. Those were the days my friend.

As we grew older and had our own families, the period became a time to give the children a semblance of what we had growing up despite the fact that television had replaced moonlight stories and PCs had destroyed communal living.

I always sense Xmas is in the air when the climate changes and the harmattan wind comes with its dust and mist. This meant cold mornings and colder taps especially if you grew up in a rural town or village. Later, in the city, the first arrival of a Xmas card meant the season had commenced.

These days, it is not the Xmas card that signals the season, it is the wedding card. They simply pile up once the season approaches and have managed to replace traditional seasonal cards. There have been times I have been unlucky enough to have two weddings per day for a week during the festive season.

I often wonder why people put weddings on Xmas, Boxing and New Year days. Is this a sign of how insensitive we have become as a nation? These are family days which people should respect and hold inviolate. (I hope soon, to write about weddings and how we have created a new industry and a new National past time of waste — of time and money.) Yes; weddings have become another reason for the season.

For many of us over the years, there have been many reasons for the season—a time of decorations, exchange of gifts, visits, weddings and revelry.

The birth of Christ and what it should signify is lost on us. That someone who knows he was going to die a horrible death willingly came to earth to redeem us and make atonement for our sins has been lost on us. The nearest thing to sobriety is in the planning of New Year resolutions. Unfortunately, very few of us have the will power to even follow that through.

I realise that the body needs the break that the season provides since it gives us an opportunity to recharge our depleted batteries. And for those who make annual trips home, an opportunity to connect with their roots. Fun is good and the sharing of fun is even better. But as we feed the body during festive seasons, it will not be amiss to feed the mind and body as well.

Xmas is the anniversary of a man who willingly went through a sacrificial death while the New Year is a chance to start afresh and correct the mistakes of the past. We should take those to heart and examine the values that are becoming entrenched in our consciousness; values of profligacy, wastefulness, greed and insensitivity to the have nots in our midst. Let the new reason for the season be that of renewal, of rebirth. Another year has begun and we have been handed a blank cheque again. What are we going to fill in it? May God inspire us to do what is right .