Making too merry

By Bernard Likalimba

During my teenage years in Malawi, Christmas was not all about going to church and praying. For many, Christmas was also about going to dances and drinking parties. For some, it was even the time to meet their lovers, probably to spend a longer time together than they had during the days outside of the Christmas season. There were also those who believed that Christmas was a time to wear new clothes, asking their guardians, parents, lovers and partners to buy them new clothes with little regard to the resultant financial burdens.

Pre-pubescent village children would walk around dancing parties during the whole afternoon of Christmas Day carrying bottles of fizzy cooldrink without drinking it as a way of showing off to the world that they had celebrated the day to its level best. For most of these children, sodas were unaccustomed luxuries outside of the Christmas season.

My observations about Christmas in South Africa aren’t much different. This sort of  “holiday making” involves activities such as drinking parties, beach-going, spending time with special friends or lovers. Travelling becomes common. What is a home for some becomes a holiday-destination for others.

The to and fro movements resulting from these activities cause traffic officials to implement an intensified traffic control campaign, in some case to the point of “zero tolerance.”

In the midst of all that, violence increases. I know of people joining parties with the express purpose of confronting an old adversary. Sometimes these confrontations would involve knifes, and killings would not be uncommon.

With all the parties and drinking, people might do things that can lead to estrangement from their spouses. It needn’t be said in a Catholic newspaper that Christmas celebrations should not be a pretext for engaging in pre- or extra-marital affairs (of course, there are no suitable pretexts for such things). Those who think otherwise, it must be said, could make an indirect contribution to the spread of HIV/Aids.

All these activities, morally dubious as they are, sum up the big challenge the Church is facing in Africa: to use the Christmas Season to intensify the teaching of Christian moral values.

May this Christmas be a blessed and, above all, responsible one for you and your family.