We all celebrate Christmas day. It is that one special day companies shut their doors and industries switch off their machines. The bug of Christmas catches everyone. It is a time for merrymaking.
In my case, each festive season I travel with my wife and children to the rural areas. It is that one occasion I will meet my other family members, aunties, cousins and nephews. People will come from all over, descending on the little village of Chokodza. Some will come from as far as South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. And then there is always that long lost aunt or cousin that will come for the festive season with all sorts of stories and how well they were doing.
Others will come by bus and the well off will arrive driving their shiny cars and showing off to everyone that they have made it.
This always drives me mad. At times there is the unspoken competition for the display of opulence among the villagers. And some of the old men will start boasting about their successful sons and daughters to whomever they met.
During this time, the once desolate shopping centre will suddenly come to life and become a hive of activity with many revellers.
This festive season I had decided to spend Christmas time with my family. For once we were not going to travel to the rural areas. Mai VaMaidei had agreed to my idea of inviting my own mother to town for Christmas and she would have the opportunity to spend more time with her grandchildren and make a big fuss over them.
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That was settled. And so on the day my mother arrived, Christmas day was just three days short. We had planned to spoil her during her stay.
"Don’t finish all the money on me, and don’t forget that when I go back to the village, I will still need fertiliser,” she said.
So it was quite surprising that on the night my mother arrived, Mai VaMaidei made an unexpected strange request.
"I want my own mother to come for Christmas,” she said.
I was taken by surprise. This was not part of the plan. We had agreed to bring her on Christmas the following year.
We did not have electricity, but I looked obliquely at her in the dark.
“Our house is too small, It won’t accommodate all our parents, don’t forget our plan,” I said.
She was being impossible. It seemed, she had already made up her mind. In reality, she was just informing me out of courtesy.
“This year is the perfect opportunity for her to come and celebrate Christmas with us,” she said. I turned round in the bed and looked the other way .
Of course, Christmas is the time to make merry with everyone and family members, but this was not a good plan. If my own mother had not yet arrived, I was going to cancel her journey, but now it was already too late.
Our two rooms, which we were renting were too small for two more adults.
And sure enough the next day when I arrived from work, I found my mother-in-law had already arrived. She was sitting in the kitchen with my mother and my children. Maidei, Marita and Marwadzo were both sitting around them.
Their relationship was a bit frosty and they both made great effort to hide it under the surface. They had failed to strike a chord the very first time they met. They were jealous of each other and each tried to win the heart and soul of their grandchildren. If you bring a tiger and a lion in the same room, trouble is bound to happen. But this did not stop them from discussing about the rains and how they were failing them. The last two rainfall seasons had been marked by drought and crop failure.
“My grandchildren are growing, the children of today grow too fast,” said my mother-in-law.
“It’s because they are eating these genetically modified foods, that’s why,” I replied as I proceeded to greet them. She was not the only one.
She had brought Esther, my wife’s unmarried young sister who had become infamous for hopping from bed to bed with married men in the village. There was always some scandal involving her each time as some of the women would fight her.
I had brought with me some scintillating Christmas lights, which I bought from a China shop in town on my way home from work. I was hoping that they were going to light up.
We had kept the artificial Christmas tree from the previous year and it still looked new.
The house was now overcrowded and I no longer had the excitement to put Christmas displays in the house. But I had to do it for the sake of the children, who loved the Christmas displays.
The mood of Christmas was overpowering. The festive season is the perfect opportunity to spend time with family, meet friends, relatives and make merry bringing closure to the year.
*Onie Ndoro OnieX@90396982