Long time ago in Jamaica, there used to be a marked difference between Christmas celebrations in urban areas as against those in rural parts of the island. However, over recent years, the differences have been gnawed at and chipped away, leaving the island, save for geographical and infrastructural detail, looking like one big urban mass.

In the deep rural Westmoreland district of Ashton, the traditional practices of that small community, which included the stilt-walking Jonkanoo festival and playing marbles and gigs, have given way to the grandmarket and street dance phenomena of urban towns.

O’brian Excell, who lives in Ashton, is not that old, in fact he’s only 29, but he remembers the former days.

“It is a big change (that has occurred) since the last 15 years,” he said. “The youth used to have more fun then, playing marbles and gig while Christmas concert ah gwaan and we used to mek bike wid bearings and so on. I don’t even know if some youth today know ’bout gig. At Christmas time, we used to have Jonkanoo and walk on stilts and all dem suppen deh, as youngsters growing up, but the youth nowadays not having that kind of fun. Now it’s just music and football and basketball and sporting.”

Excell added that in previous times, a big fun day was held in the community square where neighbouring communities would compete in a game of cricket, but this, too, he said, has been discontinued.

Early traditions in the northern St Catherine districts of neighbouring Marlie Hill, Content, Brown’s Hall and Kentish have also been worn away in the face of growing urban influences.

Seventy-three year-old Alberta Bennett, who grew up in Marlie Hill, related her childhood Christmas experiences to the Sunday Observer.

“When we were children growing up in the country we used to go and pick up rat cut coffee seeds (seeds that fell to the ground when rats bit into cocoa pods) under the trees, dry them in the sun and then sell them at the shops,” she said. “We would get like two shillings per quart and with that, we could buy a shilling bread – it was a big, long bread – and dollies. On Christmas morning we would get a big cup of chocolate tea and everybody would have dem own shilling bread so wi didn’t have to ask mama for any bread.”

After breakfast, Alberta said, dinner, made mostly with pork, would start immediately.

“They would always kill a hog for Christmas and on Christmas morning they cut the pork and boil it with annatto and escallion and thyme, it used to smell really nice,” she reminisced. “Then they tek out a big junk ah pork an put it inna yuh plate an pour di sauce over it.” The sauce, she explained, was made from thickening the liquid in which the meat was boiled.

There was no rice, she said, as the meal was made complete with bread, which was used to dip into the sauce.

On Boxing Day, the elderly woman remembered having picnics in the village, going to concerts or riding on a merry-go-round, after which, she said, everyone went to bed.

“Wi jus go a wi bed afta wi eat done and wi belly full because there was no light and the place was dark,” she said, adding that the only Christmas ornament in the house was a big grapefruit or orange with the leaf and stem intact hanging at the doorway or inside the house.

Today, however, as Miss Zama from neighbouring Kentish told the newspaper, nothing especially distinctive happens in that community.

First of all, she said, there is now electricity in the area so there are Christmas lights and tinsel decorations in many houses, just as there are in urban centres. This means that there are more entertainment activities staged at night, including street dances. She said this has affected the spirit of community and the closeness between families that once existed.

Another resident of Kentish, who gave her name only as Addassa, said that during the 1960s, the difference between both the rural and urban sectors of the society were much more evident and obvious. She told the Sunday Observer that what she and other children used to mark the start of the festive season was not the stringing of Christmas lights – such as what obtains in urban towns – the changing hues of the poinsettia, or even the drop in temperature. Instead, the beginning of the season was marked by the blossoming of sugar cane in nearby fields.

“In town, it’s all about the lights and the first thing that hits you is the breeze,” she said. “You feel that in the country too, but because it is usually cold there, you don’t feel the difference so much… In the country there was no electricity, so there were no pepper lights. We knew when Christmas was coming because we could see the cane blossoms at Worthington Park Sugar Estate and the Vere Plains.”

Addassa added that she knew Christmas was near, too, when she saw people clearing sidewalks in the area.

“We used to always see the bushing of the roadside. The Roads and Works people would come and give out work and all the men in the community would look forward to it,” she said. “They would get pay the Friday before Christmas so that would be their Christmas money. That was a big thing in the community.”

Jasmine Brown, a pastor from the Riversdale community of St Catherine, blamed the gradual erosion of traditional Christmas practices on her community’s proximity to urban towns.

“People aren’t sticking to the traditional values, maybe because we’re so close to Linstead and Spanish Town,” she said. “We have lost out on the true meaning of Christmas, which is caring and sharing but a little is still left.”

But Brown admitted that families still get together and do a lot of sharing more than in the urban areas. “When they bake and cook, they dish out some and take to their neighbours, especially when they kill a goat or a pig, they’ll take a leg to Maas Tom… We look out for the elderly folk in the community [and] we look out for the poorer class, especially with food and clothing.”

Brown added that some residents in the community do carolling as part of their Christmas celebrations, but said that even this is on the wane.

“We go carolling in the morning sometimes for a whole week leading up to Christmas day,” she said. “We’d go at about five o’clock, but much is not being done anymore because of the whole commercialisation of Christmas.”

Commercialised or not, one cannot get away from the red and white Poinsettia blooms, the crisp breeze, the flashing lights, the scent of Christmas pudding wafting on the air, shops full of treats, Christmas trees and tinsel. And however we choose to celebrate the season, one thing is for certain, it is a time of year to which we still look forward.

thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com