Our First Christmas Eve in Lagos - as told to our grandchildren when they were little - by Elizabeth Obadina

 This piece of writing first appeared on the blog in two parts in December 2020.

Listen carefully and today I will tell you the story of Granny and Grandad’s first Christmas Dinner in Nigeria.

    It was the Christmas before Big Sister was born and Granny and Grandad were young, younger even than your mummies and daddies are now! We hadn’t been very long in Lagos but had made lots of friends and lots of them were going to be in the city all by themselves on Christmas Day, so Granny and Grandad invited them for a real English Christmas Dinner. Great Grandma, Grandad’s mummy, planned to spend Christmas Day in church but had promised us a turkey for our special meal.

    We’d looked in the supermarkets but couldn’t find turkeys, we looked in the markets where most people bought meat and chicken, but we couldn’t find turkey so we were very happy when Great Grandma said she would find us a turkey for our Christmas Dinner.

    We bought everything else we needed: potatoes, carrots and cabbages – there were no Brussel sprouts in the Lagos markets.  We bought bacon and sausages from the supermarket and we bought sweet white Ghana bread from the girl who sold it outside our flat and we grated the sweet loaf into breadcrumbs for stuffings and breadcrumbs for bread sauce  made with powdered milk and a deep red onion studded with cloves. It was the first time we’d seen red onions. We bought extra tins of Nido milk powder so that we wouldn’t run out of milk for the custard and Christmas pudding we had brought from England. We decorated our flat with an artificial Christmas tree and tinsel decorations bought from street traders selling to drivers stuck in long, long traffic jams on the motorways. Nigerians called these traffic jams, go-slows and if you waited long enough you could buy almost anything you wanted from these traders – but we never saw a turkey for sale.

    Getting a turkey from Great Grandma was a very special present.

    By Christmas Eve we were all ready. The decorations glittered in the bright African sunshine and tinkled as the chilly Harmattan wind blew through the apartment covering everything with thick Sahara dust, which looked like frost and made us wrap up warmer. It was even looking  like an English or Norwegian Christmas! When there was a power cut in the late afternoon – as there always was – Granny and Grandad lit candles and felt very cosy and Christmassy.

    But something was bothering us. There was no turkey. Then as the sun sank low sending warm red sunbeams into every room, we heard a clattering and clanging of the compound gates opening, a car engine stopped and car doors banged and soon we heard people coming up the stairs. It was Great Grandma and her household.

    Soon the balcony door was opened, and Great Grandma entered the sitting room as the setting sun made the gold and silver threads in her head-tie sparkle with Christmas spirit. We greeted her. Behind Great Grandma came Auntie Cissy who bobbed her head in greeting and evening sunshine shimmered over the two ladies in Christmas delight. Behind Auntie Cissy came Great Grandma’s house-girl in her new Christmas clothes holding Great Grandma’s handbag in one hand and a bunch of plantain in the other. The plantains were a present. Behind the girl came Muyiwa, Great Grandma’s driver who was carrying Christmas presents for us that Father Christmas had had to leave at Great Grandma’s house because he didn’t know his way around Lagos so well and had got caught in a go-slow. He still had to get to the children in Norway who were waiting for their presents on Christmas Eve and then he had to deliver presents to all the children in England too.

    This was lovely – but where was the turkey? Muyiwa put the presents under the tree as Father Christmas had told him to. 

Then he pushed open the balcony screen door.

The turkey walked in.

 “Is it big enough?” Great Grandma asked.

Big enough? BIG enough??!!

It was huge… as big as an ostrich Granny thought, although Granny had never actually seen an ostrich.

“Yes Grandma, it’s plenty big enough,” we both said, “Thank you very much, but …”

“But,” said Great Grandma.

“But it’s alive.” said Grandad.

    There was a moment or two of silence whilst everyone looked at our Christmas Dinner who was strutting around the sitting room making himself at home.

“Someone will have to kill it,” said Great Grandma as the setting sun flooded the sitting room with blood red sunshine. She looked us over.

“Where is your butcher?” Great Grandma asked Granny.

“In the supermarket …” Granny said softly.

“Tsch,” said Great Grandma and drew herself up from a comfy arm-chair. “I will have to find my butcher, although it’s late. It’s Christmas Eve."

    And with a flurry of goodbyes and ‘Merry Christmases’ our visitors left the apartment as they had arrived. Great Grandma leading the way, followed by Auntie Cissy followed by Great Grandma’s house-girl holding Great Grandma’s handbag, followed by Muyiwa carrying Christmas presents that Father Christmas had got really mixed up over and had delivered to England in the summer for Granny and Grandad to bring to Uncle Yemi and Uncle David and Great Grandma. Last of all, the turkey followed everyone down the stairs, across the compound and into the car. The great metal gates clanged open, and shut, and from the mosque opposite came the early evening call to prayer and from the church next door came a lot of drumming to accompany Christmas carol singing.

 

    Granny and Grandad hung over the balcony watching people coming home from work, shopping, cooking and generally going about their business on Christmas Eve in a scene lit by oil lamps and candles – for there was still no electric power.

    Granny looked at Grandad and said, “This is how Christmas Eve must have looked two thousand years ago,” and then she said, “What are we going to do for our Christmas Dinner?”

“Don’t worry, “said Grandad, “My mum will make sure the turkey arrives in time for tomorrow.”

    The story doesn’t really end there on Christmas Eve but you’ve probably heard enough now and I’ll tell you tomorrow how it ended.