A Family Affair

On Christmas, people travel down memory lane of their childhood and share festive recollections of getting together with relatives, and the delicacies prepared

- ANUSREE PV

IN the hills, girdling the roads, Christmas was a month-long festival. The church perched on the hill-top, swelled with the strumming of guitar, thrumming of drums, and the tunes of chorus. Houses on the sparsely populated area had illuminating stars hung on either bamboo trees or on the rooftops. And on Christmas day, the entire community would gather for the holy mass followed by a sumptuous lunch - a feast brimming with non-vegetarian cuisines. The congregation in the church sang every year, 'We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year'. These were the memories of Christmas in the northeastern state, Nagaland.

As I moved south, the ways of celebrating looked different to some degree - from taste to people and culture, the undertone of Christmas also changed. The preparation for this grand festival starts weeks and months before. Akhil Gracious, an entrepreneur, says, growing up in an orthodox Christian family, Christmas was the main festival for them. "During Christmas holidays, we would go to either my dad's or mom's ancestral home. A few days before the festival, we had to keep the Christmas tree and crib ready. One of the families would bring the materials for the crib. Unlike today, we made it from the scratch. We would gather green grass, dry them to make hay shed, place Mary, Joseph, kings, goat, stable, cover the top with dried palm leaves, and cut tree branches to make the basic structure."