For many of us, Christmas is going to be bigger than ever this year, with lots of our traditional celebrations having to be cancelled last year, many of us feel we have a lot of making up to do! This got us thinking, what is Christmas like for our artisans in Africa? We asked our artisans Jones and Boniface to share with us what their typical Christmas day celebrations look like, and here is what they had to say.
Jones - Zimbabwe
"We spend Christmas as family and friends gathered together. It is an important time to spend with those that are close and you have not had a chance to see during the busy year. We share some stories of the achievements and failures we have experienced and help each other how you might win in other similar situations in the future. It is good to ask the advise of friends and family on things that you cannot work out for yourself. We all love to sit around and talk about how wonderful our achievements are and how we will overcome the future problems in the coming year. We also share some food together. We do not eat roast turkey as it is very hot in December in Zimbabwe but we do eat barbecued meat like chicken and beef. We also eat our traditional Sudza which is a savoury porridge made out of maize meal which we eat with our veggies and meat. The kids have a wonderful time chatting to each other and playing in the garden whilst the adults sit and catch up. Christmas is a time to see our family and relatives so we visit them and they visit us."
Boniface - Kenya
"In our country we spend Christmas with elderly people, visiting the sick and visiting the children's home to share with them and giving food to vulnerable families and sharing. We do not really give many presents like they do in the West. For us it is a time to share what we have with those who don't have much and to make sure the sick and vulnerable are looked after with food and medication and company. We drink tea and eat snacks like chapatis and rice and sometimes if we have some extra money we buy meat which we share - we also like to buy a few soft drinks like juices. We spend the day visiting people and going to church to give thanks for what we have received in the past year and praying for us and our community to have a prosperous new year. We also visit sick and needy families to sit with them and bring some joy to them and also share what we have with them."
We would like to say thank you to Boniface and Jones for taking the time to speak with us, as well as a huge thank you to them and all of the other fantastic artisans we work with for all of their hard work this year. We would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas from all of us at Artisans & Adventurers, wherever you are in the world.
I loved reading about how other people in different countries celebrate. How wonderful it’s not so commercial there but about the coming together of families to celebrate their past year, to Share food and to visit and help others less fortunate. True celebrations of caring and sharing🩷