To start with, what is tradition?

Tradition is defined as a specific practice of long standing.

Therefore today, I will talk about 5 Christmas specific practices of long standing in my family.

Most of these traditions are common to Nigerian family.

Here are my 5 most favorable traditions while growing up

1. Buying of Christmas and New year Clothes.

In a typical Nigerian family, Christmas started by contemplating on what’s new to wear on Christmas which we called odún kekere (small festival) and January 1 which is called odún nla (big festival).

My family is not different, a few days to Christmas, the female members of the house will go and get clothing materials for the house to be given to the family tailor for sewing before Christmas.

When we are small, it is uniform that is aso-ebí but when we grow up, each one of us will collect his/her share of the largess to buy what he/she likes.

2. Rearing of Chicken.

This is also traditional to an average Nigerian Christians for Christmas.

This usually started in September and the innocent chicken will be slaughtered on 25th after the Christmas service.

For most families like me, more than 4 chickens are reared. This is to cover Christmas, New year and gifting.

3. Christmas services.

We used to have 3 Christmas themed services namely; Carol, Christmas Eve on 24th and the Main service on 25th in our new clothes (if we bought any).

All these services are very special to my family and we do attend yearly.

4. Cooking and Exchange of Foods.

This is my favourite tradition.

After Christmas service at church, we return home to slaughter our chickens and cook food for family and likely visitors.

We will cook rice and prepare Amala for would-be visitors and neighbours – Christians and non-Christians alike either on Christmas day or boxing day.

We will not only give out food but assuredly, but we will also receive food packages from our Christian neighbours.

5. Visitation and Partying.

Most of our brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties and long time friends who aren’t living in the native homes are around now. We use this period to visit them, going from one house to another, eating and partying in all the places visited.

We also take the time to visit family members who will live in the same town together with also eating and merry.

That’s the 5 most cherished Christmas traditions I grew up with to mark day 12 of 2021 Blogmas.

Will like to hear yours?