By Canute Lawrence

When I was a boy in Jamaica, Christmas time meant the world to me. Christmas was a magical time of year when everybody became extra-friendly, extra-kind, and extra-loving. Oh, yes! The Christmas breeze could be felt across the island coming from far ‘up-North’, and everywhere was a buzz of activities and excitement.  It was Christmas Eve, and the neighbours on my street were cutting and clipping their garden hedges. Tall trees were trimmed, walls were given a fresh coat of paint, and sidewalk curbs were white-washed to pristine perfection.  

The previous evening, my sister and I were baking a batch of Christmas fruit cakes. I was her faithful, little assistant helping to rub the butter and sugar in a large, plastic bowl because we never owned an electric mixer. Adding the eggs, folding in the flour at intervals, adding the raisins, currants, cherries, spices, and grating the green lime skin into the mixture were moments I lived for because I would witness the results of our handiwork in a few hours. However, the one thing I could not wait to enjoy was to use my fingers to scoop out the remnants of the sweet, aromatic mixture from the mixing bowl after pouring it into the baking tins.

I remember helping to put the Christmas decorations on the verandah. Everyone on my street had decorations at the front of their homes. I sensed there was a silent competition among the neighbours to see who would put up the best and most creative decorations. Aunt Naomi from foreign, Washington, D.C. to be exact, would bring the prettiest Christmas decorations I ever saw! I thought because she was closer to the North Pole where Santa Clause resided, she was able to get the best decorations. In addition to the grapefruit tree transformed into a fully lit Christmas extravaganza, our verandah burglar bars were decorated with twinkling lights.

My dad was a farmer, and planted gungo peas and sorrel in the hills of St. Andrew. We seldom had to buy those items in December. I remember sitting on the ground with a crocus bag spread out in front of me helping to shell the gungo peas until my fingertips felt almost sore. My grandmother would use some of the fresh gungo to make gungo peas soup which she only made at Christmas time. Neighbours would be peeping through the holes in the zinc fence and then call over the fence to tell my grandmother that her soup was causing them “distress.” The soup had in beef, chicken feet, cow skin, pumpkin, coco, yams, dumplings (with a tups of cornmeal), cho-cho, turnip, and fresh herbs. The pot smelled so good, I recall standing beside the coal stove waiting for the soup to be ready (I was 10 years of age, so bear with me). When the rich gungo peas soup was ready, my grandmother called over the fence asking my neighbours to give her containers so she could give them some soup.

The highlight was my sister taking me to Christmas Grand Market on Christmas Day in the evening after an early dinner. Getting ready for Christmas Grand Market had me so excited, I could hardly contain my excitement. I got dressed so fast, it felt like I was waiting for eternity for my sister to get ready. I was constantly watching the clock to see how close my sister was to being ready. When she finally was ready, and we got to the gate, my sister told me to turn back. Another disappointment – I was wearing two different color socks. After a few minutes, we were on our way to Christmas Grand Market in downtown, Kingston.

When we came off the bus at West Parade, there was a sea of colors as far as the eyes could see. The atmosphere was so electric, vibrant and distracting that I had to stick closely to my sister as her hand held me safely by the wrist. Even though I was still satiated from my Christmas dinner, the enchanting smell of roast corn was mesmerizing. The atmosphere was reverberating with a cacophony of sounds from all directions. Vendors shouting, the cane man promising how sweet his sugar cane was, but I was particularly captivated by the sharp, whistling sound of the red and black peanut cart accompanied by the unmistakably sweet aroma of the hot peanuts sitting above the coal oven. There was an unusual sound in the distance that seemed to be getting more and more pronounced. The crowd, too, appeared to be affected by the infectious rhythms that seemed to be approaching our vicinity. The multitudes of people motioned like a tidal wave which opened up like a sea monster revealing what appeared to be masqueraders coming through the centre – Jonkanoo dancers!  The music of the fife, maracas and the drum was as intoxicating as that of the Pied Piper’s fluting, and as Donkey, Pitchy Patchy, Policeman, Horse Head, and Belly Woman jumped and pranced and twirled and twisted themselves toward the crowd in intimidating fashion, the crowd retreated with excited horror.  As Pitchy Patchy and Policeman had their singular dance moment with Belly Woman, all kinds of ideas were swirling in my head, and one of them was: Which one of those beings got Belly Woman pregnant? Feeling that my sister could somehow hear my thoughts, I looked up at her. My sister was not there! My sister was not holding my hand!! My sister was nowhere in sight!!!