Christmas and Festive wishes

Festive greetings from the Admin team of Lucky and Speedy.

 

Start with a warning – this is a long post!

These are difficult times without precedent. Time has a new meaning as has social distancing. Social distancing which was to be avoided is now encouraged. The Blog and other web utilities such as Zoom have helped to bring us closer together. As we keep saying, we are a unique batch and we share fond memories which will stay with us forever.

I am using Chira’s lovely Greeting painting (which was shown in the dialogue post) and finally, I am adding a festive song to bring some gaiety and laughter. 

Lucky and I like to wish all of you and your families a happy Christmas and New Year. In this post, I am including more than one author in a festive spirit of togetherness. 

Firstly Srianee (Bunter) is going to talk about Christmas. I loved reading it and I am sure you will too. 

Next, I am presenting someone we know well in a different light. We all know about his immense literary talents but how many of us knew about his artistic talents? 

Then a Christmassy musical offering from me. 

A Christmas poem by our Poetess, Zita. 

And finally a list of people who sent greetings to all in the Blog via email.

I do hope you enjoy going through this and do send your comments and if you have any problems, please email them to me and I shall post on your behalf. 

Speedy 

 (A) Christmas Present.  Srianee Dias 

A popular Christmas song that is being played over and over again on the radio these days goes “Have yourself a merry little Christmas. May your heart be light.  In a year our troubles will be out of sight…” (Those are the lyrics in the original Judy Garland version.)

As I sit in my home, with lots of snow outside, awaiting the arrival of my older daughter and son-in-law this evening, I am certainly hoping that will be the case next year.  Like Ebenezer Scrooge in ‘The Christmas Carol,’ I am visualizing ‘Christmas Past’ and imagining ‘Christmas Future’ as I cope with ‘Christmas Present.’ 

I know that many people are despondent and upset about the changes they have to make this year.  Some seem to have great difficulty in foregoing the familiar traditions that have been part of their lives for many years.  In my own experience, Christmas traditions have always been rather fluid.  They changed in parallel with whatever was going on in my life and in the lives of my family. 

Going back to childhood memories.

When I was a very young child Christmas was a magical time; after all Santa Claus was arriving at midnight on Christmas Eve with loads of presents for us all.  There was much anticipation in the preceding weeks as my mother did the preliminary cutting and chopping of dried fruits and nuts for the delicious fruit cake, which would ultimately be shared among neighbours and friends.  The chopped fruits and nuts were soaked in brandy for weeks before the final mixing of the batter in an enormous basin.  My siblings and I enjoyed licking the raw cake batter which contained a large quantity of raw eggs.  It was remarkable that no one fell ill.  Prior arrangements had been made with a local bakery for the cakes to be baked in a slow oven.  There were too many cake tins to fit in our average-sized oven at home.  It was quite a logistical feat.

When Christmas Eve came around our Christmas tree was firmly fixed in a sand-filled flower pot (no fancy Christmas tree stands at that time) and left for Santa Claus to decorate.  Sleep did not come easily to any of us.  We woke up on Christmas morning to gifts spread around a beautifully decorated Christmas tree.  The Santa Claus myth was shattered when we found out that my parents and my father’s youngest brother had been the Santa Claus after all! 

On Christmas morning the whole family attended the ‘Family Service’ at Christ Church Galle Face, where collecting toys for an orphanage was part of the service.  My parents made each one of us donate one of the toys we had received from Santa.  That was a gut-wrenching sacrifice for us, but in retrospect, I value the lessons we learned.  Later in the day we visited both grandmothers in Moratuwa.  During the weeks that followed, we were also expected to make ‘Christmas visits’ to all the uncles and aunts, where we were served Christmas cake along with cream crackers and cheese!  These visits were reciprocated when the uncles, aunts and cousins came to visit us.  By the end of the Christmas ‘season’ our appetite for the rich Christmas cake had declined considerably!

How things changed with time.

As we grew older, attending the carol services at various churches in Colombo was part of our lead up to Christmas.  The beautiful “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” at St. Thomas’ College, Mt Lavinia was an annual highlight.  The choir, trained by Rev. Bowyer Yin, was exceptional, and the service was usually very crowded with people lining up outside, hours before the start of the service. Often, the attendees included non-Christians who enjoyed the excellent music.  The service began with a haunting soprano solo, “Once in Royal David’s City” as the choir entered the Chapel in procession, in the tradition of the King’s College, Cambridge choir.  (Last Christmas I was delighted to discover a similar carol service at Trinity College, Hartford, but I will have to wait until next year to enjoy that experience again.) 

Memories of Christmas as a Medical Student.

In Medical College I joined the Student Christian Movement and one of the memories I treasure is that of visiting the University Faculty in their homes and serenading the professors and their families with carol singing.  In return, we were treated to delicious treats.  About 25 of us travelled in a private bus, starting in the evening and ending up about 2:00 am the next morning.  As the secretary of the organization one year it was my job to send out postcards to our hosts to inform them of the approximate times of our visits, and enquiring if they would be home?  My uncle Rev. Celestine Fernando was our Chaplain then, and our visit to his home was scheduled for approximately midnight.  When he received my postcard he responded by mail “Of course, we’ll be home, what do you think we are, bats?!” 

Christmas in the US

The first few Christmases after our arrival in the US are blurred in my memory but we did get together with other ‘transplants’ during Christmas and the New Year, since none of us had families living nearby. 

Later on as a single mother raising two daughters, Christmas became rather hectic.  There were school concerts, Christmas parties with my colleagues, and various other obligatory activities.  Gifts had to be bought, and that had to be squeezed in between getting my work done at the hospital.  These had to be hidden from prying eyes because even though my children had outgrown the Santa Claus myth, they still liked the surprises on Christmas Day. I found myself staying up very late on Christmas Eve wrapping presents and being annoyed at myself for buying so many!  I found the American emphasis on Christmas shopping, expensive gift buying, and the decorations that appeared at the shopping malls earlier and earlier every year increasingly annoying. I tried to steer the traditions to a more meaningful experience for my family by taking them to a beautiful candlelight service at our Church on Christmas Eve and inviting a couple of families to our home on Christmas Day. We enjoyed Indian and Sri Lankan cuisine and spent the afternoon dividing ourselves into teams to play Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary.  It was great fun and lasted for several years until one by one the young people went off to college. 

As my daughters grew up and family expanded

When my daughters became young adults the celebrations took many different twists and turns and I had to adapt.  Now that my daughters are married and living on different continents, I have realized that it is impossible for the entire family to be together at Christmastime.  It is a reality that simply has to be accepted.  I have spent Christmas in Germany with my younger daughter and family sometimes, and at other times with my older daughter and son-in law at my home.  I have enjoyed the time spent in the German Christmas markets sipping gluhwein and eating toasted sugared almonds, and gathering with their extended German family.  In West Hartford, Christmas is often spent with my daughter’s in-laws.  My Christmas traditions have evolved and been enriched over the years.

And this year, I am very thankful to be able to relax at home with my daughter and son-in-law.  I don’t have to do much cooking or entertaining and I have no plans to leave my cozy nest!  This is ‘Christmas Present’ and I will take it as it comes.

I wish you all a safe and peaceful Christmas and a much improved New Year! 

(B) The hidden artist bares himself!

This self-portrait is so lifelike; I don’t need to tell you who the artist is. His literary talents are legendary but this was a revelation. Batchmates have an "endear-ing" way oI addressing him. I wonder how many other batchmates need to “come out”! 

 (C) My musical offering

This is my own interpretation of a Christmas classic. Hope you enjoy it. Speedy.

Please click on White Christmas and this will open a new window where you can play the song.

White Christmas by Speedy

 (D) Zita’s Christmas contribution 

(E) And Finally the list of people who sent greetings.

I won’t quote each but essentially they say the same thing. Here is a synthesized version.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.  There is now a new enthusiasm and a revived feeling of togetherness. Long may it last. Thanks for keeping our batch flag flying. To everybody, a peaceful, safe Christmas and a much improved 2021.

Best wishes to all. Hi everyone, Merry Christmas and a blessed and a year of 2021, hopefully much different to the year we have been through. God bless. Wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a lovely New Year.

Nihal (ND) Amarasekera

Zita Perera Subsinghe

Srianee “Bunter” Dias

Rajan “Patas” Ratnesar

Sunil Abeysuriya

Malkanthie McCormick

Lucky Abeyagunawardene

Swyrie Balendra

Appu Sumathipala

Sanath Lamabadusuriya

Manil Katugampola (nee Hettiarchchi)

Nadarasa Vishweshwara

Chirasri Jayaweera Bandara

Sunanda “Jimmy” Wickremasinghe

Anton Ambrose

Kumar Gunawardena

Harsha Boralessa

Sura and JC Fernando

Pramilla Senanayake

Suriyakanthi Amarasekera

Indra Anandasabapthy

My apologies if I inadvertently omitted anybody.