By Masimba Mukichi
Hippity hip hooray! Thank God it’s Friday – Black Friday, the last Friday before Christmas. Most companies have closed for Christmas. The trains, buses and cars are full of people travelling home for Christmas. Business is flourishing for taxi drivers who are plying to and fro the city carrying revellers to High Street Pubs for a booze bender.
The High Street is also awash with shoppers who are on a shopping spree – they are bargain hunters for Christmas presents. School kids are on Christmas break and they are waiting patiently for Santa Claus to bring gifts for them on December 24 the night before Christmas.UK at large is a hive of activities on Black Friday – the last Friday before Christmas.
Where I grew up in rural Zimbabwe Christmas is regarded in high esteem and is celebrated with a bang. However it is celebrated differently from what they do it here. Where I grew up most people who work in towns will travel to their rural homes and celebrate Christmas with their kith and kin. Only Christmas day they won’t spend the whole day in doors as I have observed here.
Christmas where I grew up is a day of sharing with your neighbours – it is a day of opening your doors to Jack and Jill to come and join and enjoy those ‘Christmas Tea Parties ‘ going on in every household in the village. After tucking in a meal of rice or sadza and a runner chicken – the revellers will then converge at Sadza Growth Point to show their drinking prowesses – they will engage in homely communal drinking games. They will drink beer until it runs out in all the pubs at the growth point. People will spend money extravagantly in the name of celebrating Christmas forgetting that the ‘January disease’ will catch up with them – they will be broke in January. To make ends meet they will resort to selling empty beer bottles.
Indeed Christmas comes once a year and we need to spend and enjoy it with our loved ones. However I have some few issues I need to raise regarding the over spending culture on the run up to Christmas and to some on Christmas Day. It is very proper to operate within your means rather incurring debts which will back fire in the New Year. On buying Christmas presents for loved ones I am of the opinion that it is wise to ask the people you intend to buy presents for, what type of presents they really want. By doing so, one will be certain that the present to be bought will be appreciated by the recipient of the present. If we just buy presents for our loved ones without consulting them those presents are likely to be resold for quick dosh by the recipient soon after Christmas.
Believe me or not – just go to those shops which buy used goods such as Cash Generator soon after Christmas and see how those Christmas presents will be sold cheaply. It is disheartening to note that someone would have taken some time to save for that present or might have borrowed the money to buy that present and the recipient sells it cheaply soon after Christmas.
It is advisable that as we get into the fever pitch spirit for Christmas we should not forget that the New Year will be upon us soon with its financial challenges. Let’s enjoy this Christmas knowing fully that we have responsibilities ahead of us which needs money. Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you all.
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