The Quality of our Christmas

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 "Christmas just isn't Christmas anymore these days. We no longer have money to put on a real Christmas in Zimbabwe.", 

the friendly middle-aged Honda Fit driver tells me. I immediately think back to my mamncane* telling me how my grandfather used to kill a goat or a cow every year, invite people over and there'd be lots of food and dancing. That was Christmas back when she was a child. She is well into adulthood now so no guesses for how long ago that was. Or how long ago it has been since a "real" Christmas happened in our family.

The Christmas that I knew was slightly less over the top, we didn't exactly kill an animal but there was lots of food and dancing. And of course the new clothes plus the excitement of seeing family you haven't seen in a while made it special for me.

But the day I listen to this man talk about how Christmas has drastically decreased in quality, I have to search deep into my heart to find out what exactly do I think Christmas is, now that I'm a little older. I have spent many Christmases away from family now, and the day I meet that very kind man, I am on my way to run an errand for a boyfriend who I'm hoping will spend Christmas with me. (Hint: He goes to spend Christmas with his family like a normal person!)

I have been pushing him to make plans with me for Christmas since July because to be honest the idea of Christmas alone makes me nervous. Something about being by myself makes me feel like Woody in Toy Story after he has been donated. Like nobody loves.

But of course that is not true! I know this. The whole idea of Christmas is about reminding us about the one who loves us so much he came to earth to save us.

But at the time I don't know this. I only know that I am running away from the feeling of alone.


By the end of tomorrow night I will end up somewhere in a strange township, in a strange house with a leaking roof and weird smelling blankets. The house we are sleeping in doesn't belong to anybody i know, but my inebriated cousin (we are using this term loosely here) led my sister and i here after a party that i shouldn't have been at in the first place. That's how deep my Exodus from loneliness is.

But as this man speaks I do not know this, or that the boy I'm running this errand for will leave me in 3months time. So I agree with him about food prices and petrol queues and all the other unfortunate Zimbabwean stuff that makes a true Christmas an impossible thing for us. And when he drops me off, and I am lost trying to find the house I am looking for, I daydream about a Christmas out in the bush, in a little vacation home far away from the hustle and bustle of overcrowded Bulawayo. I dream about being surrounded by family, cooking, laughing and just

..not being alone.


2years later as I write this piece, I feel an aching in my heart like never before because suddenly I understand how sad it is that while people complain that a lack of money is what makes their Christmas slightly less Christmasy....for me it's the loneliness. Always the debilitating loneliness and want of love.


Today i am not sure why I wrote this. Only that it came out of me. I pray that when Christmas dawns tomorrow morning, so does the revelation that when they called the savior's name Emmanuel- meaning God with us. This was meant to.be the remedy for.all our brokenness, our loneliness, our unlovedness. May the truth that all Christmas is, is a reminder that God loved us too much to leave us alone, heal us all.


Love. Light, & a thousand merry Christmases,

Siboe🤎


*Mamncane = Mother's younger sister

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