CELEBRATING XMAS THE NIGERIAN CHILDREN’S WAY IN THE ‘90s

Conductor suits,

Measured to size,

Hanging on hangers,

In Papa’s wardrobe,

Waiting to be worn,

For the festivities

Fill our thoughts

Making us eager to start Xmas earlier.

Oversize shoes,

Stuffed with tissues,

That will make us look,

Like Ali goes to school,

Is never an issue,

For even without laces,

They are like aces up our sleeves

And braces for our dresses.

Shiny plastic watches,

With shiny metal latches,

And silly looking faces,

But really looking gracey,

Lay on mama’s dressing table,

In very lovely plastic bags,

Begging to be worn,

Even before its specified time.

Mickey dark goggles,

With beautiful plastic frames,

Bought by grandma,

On her way from the village,

For her lovely little grandkids,

Lay on the refrigerator,

Blinking down like *shine-shine*

Under the Christmas lights in the sitting room.

Rolls of biscos,

Wraps of knockouts,

Bought with stolen money

Are packed under our beds

To be unleashed on passersby,

And also innocent girls we have crushes on,

As they walk out of the church

After the Xmas-eve service.

On Christmas day,

Like overstuffed teddies we walk,

Bouncing quaintly in our uncomfortable dresses,

And licking ice-skobi-skobi endlessly

While trudging from house to house,

In guise of seeing old-time relatives

But ending up with our tummies filled to bursting

And then spend the rest of the year nursing the effects of constipation.

If you never celebrated xmas the old-skool Nigerian children way,

You never knew what you missed.

© OLUWASEUN ADEGBOHUN 2011