Christmas Customs

Before I write the main portion of this entry, I want to preface it with a realization that has been accentuated through my Christmas experience. I know that there are differences throughout American culture, but I’ve found that there are so many more throughout Nigerian. There are the 3 main cultures: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. However, within these main groups there are multitudes of tribes or people groups that each possesses their own traditional dishes, cultures, songs, dances, and traditions.

I am going to describe the particular traditions that I experienced while staying in Jos. Despite Nigerian being a very family-based culture, Christmas isn’t nearly as focused around family as it in the US. The children where I’m staying went and visited “Father Christmas” in preparation for the big day. The big excitement for the children is to receive a new outfit, “Christmas clothes”! It isn’t a surprise, but instead they help to pick it out: new outfit, shoes, jewelry, etc.

Christmas morning, the children woke up, put on their new clothes and we all went to church. Though it was Christmas day, we still only sang one Christmas carol…and it was in Hausa…, the rest were typical Nigerian praise songs! (Luckily, I’d sung every carol I could think of in my head as I ran on Christmas morning!) It was neat at church to see everyone in their new clothes! Though it’s a special tradition for children, many adults participate as well! The church served everyone rice and stew (tomato sauce) with chicken and pop for lunch.

After church, we drove around Jos touring some of the main parts of the city. It was interesting to me that the city still seemed to be bustling. I feel this is due part in fact to the presence of Muslims in the city and partially due to the fact that here Christmas is a holiday to be out and about visiting people. Our next stop was to visit some of their family friends where we were given yet more fried chicken and chin chin (small fried pieces of sweet dough). Then, we returned home to receive visitors at our home. Children from the neighborhood came by to wish us a Merry Christmas bringing some traditional food items and in return, the children were given token amounts of money, fried chicken, and chin chin.

In summary, Christmas is not full of the same extravagance that it holds in the US. I’m sure there are much bigger celebrations in villages, but within the cities the big emphases are cooking large amounts of fried chicken, rice, stew, and chin chin and visiting friends and neighbors. I appreciated the reduced emphasis on gifts and increased emphasis on visiting friends and neighbors! However, I REALLY missed all the Christmas music this year, seeing my extended families and all the simple traditions from home that seem mundane at times, but in absentia they’re missed a lot!

Here is the link to some pictures practicing these customs:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49842&l=5db35&id=501312909