Christmas
I know Christmas is still about two months away or probably less than that, but I can smell it, probably because it’s my favorite season of the year or maybe truly I can smell Christmas. My friends say I’m weird but I disagree 😂, all I know is I am entitled to my own smell.
It’s not like Christmas has an aroma, what am I even saying, Christmas has its own aroma. 😂 You know how you recognize that harmattan is around because you’ve witnessed it for years and you have decided to associate the smell or weather climate to that season in particular? Or how you know when the day is about to be sunny because you can see traces of sunlight and the clouds are shifted.
As a typical Nigerian child, I looked forward to Christmas and New Year seasons because if your performance was so bad that they (your parents) didn’t get you new dresses during the year, you can be sure of getting new dresses, one for Christmas Day and one for the new year.
Sometimes you can have a native entire for both seasons and sometimes if you are lucky you get an English dress, in this context an English dress would either be a ball gown or a blouse and jean skirt or trousers as the case may be.
Every year, we’d go to church in our fine dress, I would have said with fine hair but my dream of nurturing my hair was suspended when I became a secondary school student in a government-owned institution and I could no longer braid my hair.
My mum was not a beauty-conscious person, so she didn’t even encourage festive hairstyles. Imagine me, eyeing my friends who had the liberty to go as far as relaxing their hair despite knowing fully well, that you can not resume back to school in January with that same hair. 👀
If I’m lucky to get a native dress, I end up tying one of her Gele to church and later on to the studio, Yes, we had this yearly photo shoot session. After the Christmas day service, I’d return home sometimes in the company of my siblings or in company of my friends.
After the ritual Christmas lunch, my friends and I are on our way out to visit the homes of influential people whom we were familiar with in the church with the aim of greeting them for Christmas and if we are lucky, we get free money that we didn’t work for and sometimes food and it is mostly mint currency, seems as though they knew we would be coming around.
We’d get home later in the evening exhausted but satisfied. This continued until one year when our neighbors who were also our family friends moved out of the environment to a new location and their own house, we all used to live in a rented apartment.
That was how the strategy moved to visit them every Christmas. A few things were certain, you get to eat a different combination of food, no pressure to do house chores because there are more hands available, freedom to sleep and just relax, and of course, when you’re due to return home, you have a fat purse.
It was during one of those festive seasons that I met my first boyfriend, I was 16. Story for another day. 😹 😹
No, that’s not the reason why I love the Christmas season. 😂
There is this feeling of love that comes with Christmas, people are excited to travel to their hometowns to enjoy the holiday season, companies are organizing gift bags or boxes to celebrate employees and clients, and the market man/woman has bought souvenirs to share for their customers depending on their revenue and customer type, the market is busy as that’s one of the best time you can get quality products, varieties of products, and budget-friendly.
All this will be in vain if we don’t have a clue about the main reason why we celebrate this season, not even a clue if we don’t have a knowledge of the reason for the season.
People have argued that Jesus Christ wasn’t exactly born on the 25th of December but it doesn’t rule out that he is the Christ in Christmas which means if he wasn’t there won’t be any reason to celebrate. Probably we will have just the new year or a festive season we fabricate ourselves.
Christmas is a season that has been set apart to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ whom the father sent as atonement for our sins. He became man and bore our pain and sins on the cross of Calvary. He became cursed for our sake,
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Galatians 3:13
Oh how much the father loves us even when we were yet sinners. God loves you, and he doesn’t want you to die in sin or live life without him. His original plan was to create man in his own image. He wants you to have access to his throne as his child be his replica here on earth. He wants you for himself more than anything.
As a believer, this is your reminder never to lose sight of the wonder of his birth and live with the consciousness that you have a savior and you are co-heirs with Christ.
As you’re reading this, if it all sounds foreign to you, and you need someone to help you understand the gospel, kindly send me a direct message on Twitter or Instagram.
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Merry Christmas In Advance 🎄 🎄
