Christmas memories

My most cherished memory is of choristers singing carols in the village on the night before Christmas. As a boy, I would lie awake in my bed waiting for them until I drifted away into fitful slumber. Then around 3am, strains of voices would reach me with angelic faintness and keep rising with grudging sweetness till I was fully roused.

My siblings and I with Dad on Christmas day back in time

My young heart would reverberate with sheer joy as the singers sung beloved carols from Silent Night to Jingle Bells with wholehearted voices that filled our house like subwoofers. My father would come out too and request an encore of Joy to the World, and watch enraptured as they sung his favourite carol. He would then thank them profusely and give them some money before they moved to the next house. We would linger out in the moonlight admiring the glorious moon and the twinkling stars that seemed to have come nearer to celebrate this blessed time of year with us.

The next morning would be church time. I will never forget Fr. Wence's singsong voice as delivered his Christmas sermon to a packed church with everyone dressed to the nines in the fashions of the time. For my brothers and I, it would be bell-bottom "Kaunda" suits deliberately tailored bigger so we could grow into them.

Lunch was always a shared affair with members of the extended family. That meant a goat or two and some fowls would be slaughtered. I still see us around a big table garnished with mixed delicacies, devouring and washing them down with sodas -a big deal back then.

Night time was party time as my father would insert new batteries in his black Phillips radio-cassette player and dance waltz with my mother. How they would glide and fly on the dance floor with grace! Nothing will ever erase the beauty of boyhood Christmases from my heart and mind.