Home Away from Home with Abi Adeboyejo
Email: abi.adeboyejo@yahoo.com Twitter: @abihafh
Everyone gets into the spirit of ‘good will to all men’ with people being nicer to each other. Only last week my kids had a carol service at school where they sang a number of Christmas carols very loudly (and sometimes tunelessly!). My son was part of his school choir’s orchestra, which to you and me meant he was on the cymbals, gongs, tambourine and a funny-looking thing that looked like a small piece of bamboo with thin lines carved on it.
My daughter was an angel in the nativity play and my heart almost burst with pride when she and her other tiny- tot classmates came on stage with their hands held up high on either side of their faces. They kept up the pose for about five minutes, after which they lost interest and started examining each other’s wings and halos. I was really excited about my son being on the orchestra. I thought he had been picked because he had a lot more rhythm than his English classmates. That was until I saw that all the three boys on percussion instruments were black.
I have been shopping so much these last few weeks that I am already dreading to think what my bank statement will look like at the end of the month. You may well ask what I’ve been buying because I honestly do not know. It is just that at this time of the year it seems there is something in the air that makes everyone shop. It is more than retail therapy. I think it should be called the Christmas bug.
Here in the UK Christmas is heavily commercialised. People started decorating the front of their houses since late October. Shops and supermarkets brought out Christmas gifts and lighting, with all the shiny wrappers and red-themed cards and ribbons by mid October. Once this happens every year I am hooked. I just have to buy a bit if this and a bit of that and I end up with numerous presents for all my friends’ kids, little cousins and my kids’ friends as well.
I attended our office Christmas do and honestly wished I hadn’t. I arrived at this ‘office-do’ as they are called and found I was the most conservatively dressed in a simple (albeit snug) turtle neck sweater. I was shocked when I saw what my other colleagues wore. Bearing in mind that it was less than 1 °C that evening, I could not understand how anyone could wear a little black dress with no sleeves.
My manager had the most revealing top on with flesh coloured tights and a very short skirt. The men were in an unusually jovial mood. I foolishly thought everyone was being ‘merry’ and ‘happy’, not realising that majority of them were at various stages of alcohol intoxication. The men’s laughter got louder and the ladies’ giggle got shriller. By this time I had eaten the not- so appetising dinner of (dry) roasted turkey with roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts (they were vile, the sprouts).
Then the dancing started. The music wasn’t that bad. I was used to listening to Rita Ora and Emilie Sande so the music wasn’t too bad. It was the hilarious attempts at dancing that kept me rooted to my seat. My boss, drunk and dancing, was not something you saw every day. She hopped from foot to foot like someone trying to hold in an urgent need for the toilet. She was obviously listening to some other music in her head because her movements were out of synch with the loud music. When she got a round of applause at the end of the first track I had to film her on my mobile phone. It was too good to miss.
The smell of sweaty bodies and thumping loud music finally got to me and I decided to use the restroom before heading home. There was a little cloakroom just before the door to the toilets and what my eyes saw will remain in my memory for a long time. One of the guys from our loans department was groping (among other things) two of the secretaries from human resources department. They were all in various stages of undress and there was a nasty smell in the room. I saw that someone had thrown-up on the floor just beside them. All in the name of Christmas!
What turned all my colleagues into shameless party monsters was probably alcohol. It was also partly the fault of the Christmas bug which turns normal, respectable people into freaks. Christmas seems to have significantly lost its meaning in many western countries. Through intense commercialisation, retailers get people to shop till they drop. There is also an implied consent all around the country by employers and employees that it is one time of the year when any kind of shameless behaviour is acceptable. But in all this frivolity the true meaning of Christmas is lost.
We are overdosing in commercialism and excess at Christmastime and this does not reflect a hint of what the day is supposed to mean. Non-Christians claim that what we now celebrate as Christmas was a pagan festival now adopted by Christians. Christians argue that the day is one set aside for celebrating the birth of Christ, irrespective of when this birth actually took place.
People need to remember what the season is all about – even if they aren’t religious or Christians. It’s about respecting each other, showing love and compassion for those less fortunate and for reminding us of what we currently have –food to eat, a roof over our heads, life, friends, family, employment, love and everything that makes us smile. It is not about gifts, or the drunken orgies we are going to attend. We need to look around us, at our family and friends and realise that having people that love you around you is the best present anybody could ever ask for.
New Year party next!
- This article was first published in 2012.
