Christmas carols, Christmas goodies, Christmas star, Christmas dinner, oh, the Christmas of the past! It is time to tell the youngsters how our elders celebrated the Christmas in good old days.
A group of singers would tune their voices and go serenading from door to door. Now, alas it is on a festooned tempo with a closed top and open rear parked on the road with Christmas carols played through speakers that is mounted on it.
Olden mothers prepared Christmas sweets on Christmas Eve – the crescent “Neureos”, sticky “Dodol”, traditional “Kolkols”, cracking “Mandare” and plum cake. Fathers would sit and watch the preparations. Everyone considered him as a great taster. Everything that was prepared was brought to him to taste and he would deliver the verdict with the authority of a chef. Sadly, these old joys of preparing sweets at home are over. This creative spirit is no longer active for today’s Mamas as they are working ladies. They have no time and energy after the tiresome work in office to prepare the goodies at home. So, today’s Papas get their requirement from the Christmas market.
The Holy Babe was born with a bright Star in the sky. So, some would sit to decorate a bamboo stick star with colourful tissue paper. A solitary star – alone, alone, all, all alone on a silent and holy night, it would stand on a long pole and illuminate the darksome nights of Christmas week with its wick lamp. Regrettably, now-a-days the joys of making and decorating the star are almost killed. Everything is readymade in the modern world – even the star.
In good old days the Christmas dinner table was spread with the gorgeous plates of ancestors, and tasty ‘sorpatel’ – a dish very much relished by Goans. In modern homes, Christmas has become a dull and depression thing; an excuse to get drunk, to overeat, to over spend and to over-indulge oneself in every desirable thing.
Alas! Goans have lost the marks of old delights, old customs of golden times gone by. The cola sipping generation with western ideas covering their mind should get back to the old joys of preparing Christmas sweets, the star etc.
