SPECIAL CHRISTMAS REPORT: 2ndWave, The Nightmare Before Christmas

For two millennia, people all over the world have observed Christmas with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. It is a centuries-old tradition which has been handed down from generation to generation, with each era lacing traditional Christmas traditions with the secular trends of the day.

While this greatly symbolic religious rite has drawn widespread criticism from pagans, persons of averred religious inclinations and even some Christian denominations as well, there is no gainsaying in the fact that the Christmas season, for hundreds of years, has always provided resplendent highlights around the world, setting off nuclear explosions as believers and unbelievers alike defy such rules of financial frugality and engage in unceasing bouts of merriments to celebrate the birth of a Saviour whose ministry constitutes the nucleus of the religion.

Indeed, the Christmas season has been symbolic not just to the fraction of Christian denominations who uphold its practice, but for the generality of human society regardless of creed or belief system since it provides the perfect platform for everyone to back-pedal, take the socks off, conduct a critical review of the year, express gratitude, and above all unwind in the unrestrained festivities which characteristically rent the air during this time.

The year is 2020 and it is Christmas season again, but for the first time in more than a generation, it isn’t business as usual, and it definitely isn’t sunshine and rainbows, as characteristic of this very symbolic season. The year 2020 had been ushered in with much excitement and funfair. Being the turn of a new decade, there was so much hope towards the culminations expected from a year which had been pegged to birth history in very many ways.

Indeed, 2020 has given birth to an unforgettable piece of history, but not just the kind we had prayed for. 2020 finds itself on the wrong side of history having claimed no less than 1.7 million lives around the world to a raging pandemic of a kind humankind has never witnessed before; and, just when it had seemed like the dark and gloomy days were over, a second wave has turned up like the nightmare before Christmas to thoroughly quash the mirth and merriments which conventionally pervades this festive season.

To fully understand the extent to which this very indicatory season has gone askew, Eko Hot Blog took to the streets of Lagos in a bid to interact with Lagosians and press to the discovery of the unusual trajectory of this year’s Christmas season. While some persons blamed COVID-19 for poor returns with regard to sales which is usually expected to exponentially skyrocket during this season, others said the pandemic has somewhat made everyone more thrifty in terms of spending given the economic fallout of the outbreak of COVID-19 and the consequent recession it has given birth to.

READ ALSO: Silent Nights: Christmas In Worrying And Uncertain Times

Reacting to the impact of the pandemic on business this Yuletide, Celestine Chukwu, a Surulere based fashion designer said the Christmas season has been a pale shadow of the previous seasons and no doubt the worst of his designing career.

“We’ve not had as many customers as we normally do in the past years. Everybody is blaming COVID-19. You know, they’re saying there is no money and its been quite a very disappointing festive season I have to say” Chukwu said.

Also reacting, a trader at Mende mini-market, Maryland, who did not want her name to be mentioned told our journalist that this year’s Christmas has been far off the pace, as residents have adopted a rather parsimonious approach to spending this Yuletide.

“This is always our time but we don’t understand this year at all. Everybody is saying Coro did this, Coro did that. Market has really been bad this Christmas. It doesn’t even look like Christmas to me” she said.

To say that the economic dimension of the coronavirus pandemic alone has been the sullying effect of this year’s festivities would amount to an egregious understatement. Amid all the talk of economic austerity and the obvious absence of the characteristic Christmas ostentation, there is also the almost tangible tragedy of fatalities occasioned by this lethal pandemic; a tragedy which has left many families at the mercy of the unforgiving and merciless pain of death.

But then, despite all of its disappointments, the year 2020, placed into proper context, is merely a transitory pocket of time and space, one which has been laced with invaluable lessons for all of humanity, hence it doesn’t necessarily herald the Apocalyse that it hasn’t been a white Christmas. Most significantly for all those who enjoy the good fortune of life despite this year’s flurry of fatalities, is the critical need to redefine our humanistic values and look forward to many more years of mirthful Christmas.