Bajan Christmas Past

Christmas was the most exciting day of the year for children growing up in Barbados! However it was not for the stockings over the mantel, not for the beautifully decorated Christmas tree nor was it for the perfectly wrapped presents and toys!  Christmas Day in the 1960’s and earlier had none of those things! Father Christmas was not as generous as the Santa we know of today. Children of that day did not expect toys but they could count on a new complete set of church clothes, special foods they only had once a year and Christmas cheer!

Preparation for Christmas started by cleaning the house thoroughly. All of the furniture was removed from the house and placed outside. Then on hands and knees every inch of the floor was scrubbed with bitter bush (a small thick bush with little white flowers) and a little blue soap. The house was then air dried completely. For some the cleaning was done well in advance but for others the cleaning ritual started Christmas Eve night.

Once the house was cleaned and all the weeds were hoed from the yard parents would send their children to the beach to get some of the white sand to throw around the house to represent snow. The last bit of preparation was done Christmas eve night when the new curtains would be put up to be revealed Christmas morning. The curtains were always hung with the pretty print side facing out so all of the neighbors could enjoy them. Some would walk throughout the neighborhood just to see all of the brand new curtains on display along with the balloons that the children blew up until their faces hurt!

Christmas was a time for eating and drinking with friends more like the Thanksgiving celebration in the US and Canada. Kids that often didn’t have much to eat during the year, knew that they would get as much food as they could eat and there would be no fish!

The main food for this celebration was and still is pork! In fact, Sandra’s family would get their salted ham early and it would hang it from the ceiling. The smell of salt cured ham would often be too much for the excited children to bare. When her parents were away, her oldest brother would move the kitchen table to the center of the floor and stand on it to get a closer whiff of the ham that would soon be dinner. He even made a up a song called “Hammy Boy.” The ham was soaked multiple days to remove all of the salt prior to baking it.

In addition to the ham, pork, chicken and all of the trimmings, one friend Tracy mentioned that she always remembered getting a whole english apple (from the US) for herself. Other than Christmas they didn’t get apples often, but when they did,  it was shared by the whole family cut into as many slivers as were members. She bit the apple and smelled it just to savor the fact that she had a whole apple to herself.

Christmas tradition had most Bajans at church at 5:00 am. They sang Christmas carols and celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ the Savior and greeted everyone with “Merry Christmas!” After church many went to Queen’s Park where the entire family would stroll along  wearing the new clothes that they received Christmas morning as the Royal Barbados Police Force Band played. The girls would have their hair pressed and curled with ribbons  and the boys had fresh hair cuts. The walk in Queens Park is a tradition that is still continued today.

I spoke to people from the ages 40 through 80 to create this vision of a Bajan Christmas past. Today, Christmas is celebrated much like the US, Canada and the UK. Some even have live Christmas trees to place the gift wrapped presents from toy stores like Laurie Dash and Woolworth. Yes, there is still a Woolworth here in Barbados!

The lyrics of “I Wish” by Stevie Wonder sums up the feeling of most that enjoyed a Bajan Christmas past.

“Even though we sometimes would not get a thing, we were happy with the joy the day would bring… I wish those days could come back once more!”

Merry Christmas !