Christmas traditions: The timeless and expired ones

What you need to know:

Traditions make the Christmas for what would be Christmas. Without the traditions we have come to treasure and love, Christmas would probably be a bland and forgettable holiday. Lydia Ainomugisha looks at the best of each category.

Some of these Christmas traditions have withstood the test of time. Others are but a few decades old and are in the taking root stage while others as it turned out were just a passing fad.

Timeless traditions
• Travelling to the village
Most people look forward to the festive season because that’s the time they get to go and see to go to the village and visit their grandparents.
Indeed this tradition is still common among people because if you stay around you will notice there will be many vehicles going out of town starting in December and hardly any jam in town

• Cooking a variety of food
Christmas is about merry making but what is merry making without a variety of food and drinks to savor? Most families get together or even celebrate alone as a family but the epitome of the celebrations is always cooking different food varieties in large sums.
Never mind the fact that most of the food is not eaten.

• Christmas trees
Though the old nature trees can hardly be found in towns, people still buy the artificial ones and decorate them.
There is a refreshing feeling entering the house and finding a Christmas tree decorated with coloured balls and decorative lights in the corner of the living room.
• Shopping vouchers
Perhaps as a reward for the year’s work, most workplaces give shopping vouchers to their employees as a Christmas gift.
This is something employees look forward to and any threat to take it always raises their rage.

The new ones
• Sending messages
With many people having mobile phones, persons nowadays send Christmas messages to almost everyone. The only mishap is that the messages are rarely original. Often times, people forward a received message occasionally forgetting to edit out the initial sender’s name.
Therefore, you can get the same from a circle of 10 friends because the level of innovativeness is low. In the end, the impact is low.
Most people, however, confess to deleting the messages as soon as they show on their screens because they are often the same messages rotating within all their circle friends.

• Giving gifts
Carol 35, a banker says gift giving has become very popular nowadays. “Growing up, I used to see my dad give out Christmas cards to all our neighbours but nowadays people give real gifts.
I can almost be sure to receive a gift from at least a colleague at work or friend during the festive season,” she says.

• Buying clothes
Though it is not such a big deal for most people in town to buy new clothes for Christmas, Tracy, an IT specialist, says even when she may not wear it on that day, she likes to get a new cloth for Christmas. It even worse in villages because women who don’t get a new Christmas cloth refuse going to church and make it such a big.
This anticipation doesn’t leave out the children as they also anticipate for a new clothes and pairs of shoes every Christmas period.

Outdated traditions
• Decorating with balloons, cotton and coloured toilet paper
Back in the day, people used to decorate Christmas trees with balloons, cotton and coloured toilet paper but this is now old-fashioned. Though some people still use the; ornaments like round balls in different colours and geometric shapes have since come up and on sale in décor shops.

• The natural Christmas tree
The old natural Christmas trees are hard to find especially in urban centers therefore, people have resorted to the artificial ones sold in décor shops and on the streets during the festive season.
Some, however, complain that the artificial trees don’t have the natural scent and he misses the whole tradition of invading people’s compounds to cut the trees stealthily. He says, “Burning the trees on New Year’s Eve was such a memorable event.
The fun of burning the tree when the year ends is also skipped with the artificial tree, which is kept away for the next year.