CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS IN OGURUGU

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS IN OGURUGU

Christmas and New Year celebrations in Nigeria as a whole are seasons of great joy when families get together and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The Christmas season is arguably the most celebrated season in Nigeria because most people gather to celebrate the Yuletide season. People start shopping for Christmas by early December. Nigeria, with its traditions, glamour, and extravaganza, adds to the Yuletide spirit during the end of December.

While Christmas is a lot of fun, the days before Christmas are usually filled with a lot of stress for Ogurugu people traveling to villages from various places like Badagry and Ijanikin in Lagos, Onitsha, Nnewi in Anambra, Portharcourt in Rivers State, Abuja FCT, oversees (Outside Nigeria), etc. Traffic and transport fares rise because of the many people traveling back home. Despite these occurrences, celebrating Christmas in Ogurugu has never come without the exchange of gifts and family reunions. In fact, more people now travel a week before Christmas to their villages for the Yuletide celebration. Some may be going for marriage, burial, house opening, launching, family meetings, etc.

Ogurugu, as a typical average Nigeria rural community, is a good place to spend the end of the year festive period. With its clasping harmattan breeze, Ogurugu is the place for vacation during Christmas and New Year. The festive period often brings out the very best of the people of various villages of Nigeria. In the nine villages that make up Ogurugu community, the season period is a cherished time to enjoy the thrill of Christmas carnival and New Year celebration. Everybody is happily exchanging greeting: “Mewola Kilisimasi” (Happy Christmas) and “Mewola Odo tito” (Happy New Year) in Ogurugu’s Igala dialect.

During Christmas and New Year time in Ogurugu as in many other parts of Nigeria, children expect a new cloth, called a “Christmas cloth”, from their parents. The new Christmas cloth is what most children, and some parents who still enjoy the tradition, wear on Christmas day. Children then go from house to house in the neighborhood getting Christmas gifts, usually in the form of small amounts of money. Children use most of the money to buy firecrackers and bangers (also called knock-out).

Many Ogurugu indigenes in diaspora/abroad return from towns and cities during Christmas and New Year to their ancestral villages to be with family and to bless those who are less fortunate. The township people come with their “inyamakoko” (arrival gift) which is mainly bread or biscuit. They are also responsible for providing the fund for the purchase of the food items. The major gift shared during Christmas in Ogurugu is either money or materials. People from Ajansuusually come with items like Christmas cloths, detergents, pieces of jewelry, shoes, and sandals for their friends and relatives. The home dwellers also use the period as an opportunity to display their inbred hospitality by making sure that food is always available to eat and to share.

In Ogurugu particularly, the different events that take place range from cultural, to social and to religious. People usually go to church on Christmas Day, and New Year Eve and New Year Day and begin celebrating immediately afterward. Loud music is played when they return from church and people begin to drink. People discuss their lives in the city as well as how they have faired in the village since the beginning of the year, the farm produce, and general wellbeing in at home and abroad. On the New Year Eve, some Churches remain in their Watch night service centers until midnight when people greet each other with a “Happy New Year”.

In the early morning, young children are seen going to fetch water from the streams for cooking and drinking to supplement well water while everyone great “Happy Christmas”. Morning periods are also spent in Riverbanks like Mabolo and Isi where children and youths converge to wash their clothes and swim and fetch water home. In Ogururgu, food is always prepared by the woman of the house, or first daughter as tradition permits while other younger children help in their various capacities, like running errands, fetching water, clearing the dishes, and washing plates. Cooking usually involves all women who are part of the extended family. Cooking starts immediately the women wake up in the morning. Mature male children help in killing the chicken or goat and slice it to sharable portions, they are also responsible for pounding yams and akpu. Most people cook rice and stew on the 25th December and 1st January while on the next day, most families cook akpu pounded with yam depending on the economic status of the family. The pounded akpu and yam is served with melon soup (egusi or obobo ikpakpala) or okro or ogbono soup (obobo oro) on the second day of the celebration i.e. 26thDecember and 2nd January. However, there are few exceptions to this rule. Other types of soups include obobo Ugbologu, obobo abutoje, obobo okoobo, obobo gilimu, etc.

The festive period in Ogurugu is also beautified by the display of some cultural dances by children who take to the festive opportunity to earn some money by practicing some musical dances to entertain people during the season period. Popular among these dances is the ogolichama dance in which children tie wrapper around their waste and wear tiny tinkling metals called ijenu on their legs. Many people (especially females) dress in colourful traditional apparel and engage in various dancing or parades. The dance is usually done in a choreographic manner with a lead dancer on the front dancing to the sonorous beats from the skin wrapped cylindrical percussion instruments. The older male children take to masquerading with the aim of earning some money. Some of these masquerades include the Ulaga and Tiyetiye masquerades which entertain people and sometimes cause some stampedes to the delight of the celebrants.

Unlike in the cities where families usually go to fairs, amusement parks, the beach, or street carnivals, some of the major convergence points during these festive periods are at the Ogurugu Central Market, Onoja Primary School playground, Ogurugu Garage/Motor pack, and in some of the different village squares of the nine villages. Chickens or hens are traditional meats for celebrating Christmas in Ogurugu. However, many families kill goats for Christmas. The goat meat is used to make a special pepper soup. In the different villages and clans in Ogurugu, neighbours exchange Christmas meals to show love especially to those who came from cities. Plenty of meats are usually served along with rice and stew, as well as ewo rice (mashed rice), served with melon stews. Alternatively, some contribute money to buy cows from Fulani people to share beef meat at cheaper prices. Served with this food are an array of mainly alcoholic drinks, such as the traditional palm wine, or various local and imported beers and wines; children and women may be served locally made soft-drink equivalents instead. Everyone, especially children eat to overfill to the extent that the nearby bush paths are littered with faeces from people’s running stomachs.

Around noon, music begins again around noon when everyone gets ready for Christmas. Then, everyone eats Christmas meals and have fellowship together. These masquerades dance around in traditional regalia and move from house to house to get gifts wandering companies in colourful attire perform traditional folk dramas and masquerades. Some children also paint their faces and bodies with heavy traditional Uli makeups as they gather in groups that compete with one another to put on the best masquerade in a combination of song, dance, and drumming. This tradition is slowly dying out as more people especially the Christians criticize these acts and say that Christmas is for the celebration of Christ only. However, this still remains a major way of celebrating Christmas in Ogurugu even up till this period.

Some events also take place within the Christmas and New Year celebrations in Ogurugu. Some include Ogurugu Day celebration, Ogurugu Brethren Fellowship general Crusade, Football competition, Youth Empowerment Seminars, Wedding Ceremonies, Burial ceremonies, Clubs final closing meeting, family get-togethers, to mention just some. Some days the New Year, the season period is over and the abroad people begin to depart to their various destinations to resume to their various places of works. Then the home people retire back to their various businesses which include farming, trading, teaching, and artisanship. Sources: https://www.facebook.com/groups/270911496386024/

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