memories of christmas

 Christmas was always festive season for me . Because in kerala , not only it is always a festive season with the stars and christmas cakes , as children ,it was the time of an extended holiday . The christmas holidays was an important 10 day long holiday   , the other being Onam holidays and summer holidays . As children especially decades back Christmas meant the plum cakes the hard icing variety .As children we werent bothered about all the big things . Christmas meant holidays , plum cakes and stars and meeting friends and relatives , We used to get gifted Christmas cakes and me and my cousins used to " fight " for the one or two sugar icing flowers on top of the cakes . It was a different era when we didnt have all these varieties of cakes . These  days we can even customise cakes with enough flowers (sugar icing flowers) so that it will be there for all But those times cakes had 1 or 2 sugar icing flowers .  We cousins were more than 10 and we used to meet in family house at alleppey during the christmas holidays. 

Even before the holidays before visiting native place there will be star at our house . My father being an engineer used to mostly make a star using colored paper and coconut leaf sticks ( eerkili in malayalam )  and put it together with electric bulb and small blinking circuit  , I think i found it more beautiful than the stars bought from shops . And yes , it was real fun seeing all the carols come to our house . Once , as a child my curiosity of knowing the identity of the christmas papa was so much that i gave a tug to his beard while the carol was going on . I still remember his facial expression , not anger , for it was the festive season . I returned  his beard promptly . 

I also remember the dark liquid which looked like cola ( that was the era of thums up and goldspot cool drinks ) when we were invited to a large christmas party . My father had a tough time explaining  to me that , that particular cola is not for children . Later i realised that that dark liquid(wine )  was alcoholic and just because some people had it ( my hosts family and many others ) didnt mean they arent good people or that they cant be good hosts . We learnt the freedom of choice and concept of peaceful coexistence inspite of differences even at that age . These days some people highlight the differences and fight. 

In our primary school we used to visit the church . We used to sing christmas songs. And yes we used to eat those plum cakes . 

For me christmas always remains a festival of great energy . And plum cakes are still my favorite cake inspite of 100 different cake varieties available these days . Yes , memories . And lastly my interest in playing guitar increased after hearing some new christmas songs  a few years back . 

Merry christmas to all of you and lets use  each festival to strengthen the unity of humanity .