December is indeed a special month to me since my childhood days. Being a student of a catholic convent school, I grew up singing Christmas carols and participating in the school fests celebrating the birth of Christ. The December fest in school used to begin with the quintessential play on the birth of Lord Jesus and then went on with each class presenting their thoughts on Christmas with songs, skits and dances. The selections for the participants used to begin from November though we knew beforehand who would play Jesus's parents, angels, three kings and so on. I always got selected in the song crew and felt safe because the singers did not have to look for fancy clothes as they did not had to perform on stage. We would huddle beside the piano with our music teacher.
Only once there was a break from this routine. I was chosen as a participant in group dance with the song 'Saviour's day'. How on earth did my teachers chose me, the person with two left feet as a dancer makes me wonder till date. But I enjoyed the rehearsals and the performance nevertheless.
Apart from the stage performances, there were the soft boards and cork boards to decorate for the Christmas theme. There were 'Cribs' or the models representing birthplace of Christ. On my last year in school, we were asked to think about innovative themes on 'Crib Making'. The group with which I worked on making crib thought about a globe frame with the usual Christmas scene. Now, how much we were dedicated in Christ devotion and how much we craved for roaming around and bunking classes, we only knew. Everyday, we used to plan an excuse and bunked the subject period we did not liked to study. Our frantic runnings here and there to arrange for equipments even carved soft corners in the teachers' hearts, including the teachers and sisters we were scared of.
All these hullaballoo on Christmas ended by 20th December every year and our winter vacations commenced. The garden in my quarter's backyard would be in full bloom with seasonal flowering plants by then. There were white 'December Beauties', red Poppies and Gerberas, multicoloured Zinnias, Marigolds, Chrysanthemums, Dahlias and Roses. The wintry holidays would start with observing my parents watering the plants in the garden. Occasionally, they would point the waterpipes towards me in jest making me running around the garden to save myself from the cold water droplets. There would be the fragrance of brewing coffees and bakings of cakes and nan khatais all over the household. There would be me and my brother lazing with the storybooks under the warm blankets amidst the sweet whiffs of baked goodies. There would be my mother knitting sweaters with multi-coloured wools while father would be pulling a joke or two on the structures of the knitted sweaters. The orange peels would be out in the garden for sun-drying. The sun-dried ones would be sorted for making a grounded powder essence for the orange cakes we would be carrying in our lunch boxes for the next few months. The evenings would be reserved for family tea time, the only time of the year when we were allowed to taste the specially blended black tea made by father or a mug of coffee to beat the chills.
As the days passed, the fragrances weakened signalling the reopening of school after the vacation. My mother would start to check our notebooks to find out whether we had been completing the vacation homework. A spurt of scolding would continue to resonate the air instead of the baking fragrances. The last days of December would go in frenzy yet we would be scribbling my homeworks till the very morning the school started again.
Only once there was a break from this routine. I was chosen as a participant in group dance with the song 'Saviour's day'. How on earth did my teachers chose me, the person with two left feet as a dancer makes me wonder till date. But I enjoyed the rehearsals and the performance nevertheless.
Apart from the stage performances, there were the soft boards and cork boards to decorate for the Christmas theme. There were 'Cribs' or the models representing birthplace of Christ. On my last year in school, we were asked to think about innovative themes on 'Crib Making'. The group with which I worked on making crib thought about a globe frame with the usual Christmas scene. Now, how much we were dedicated in Christ devotion and how much we craved for roaming around and bunking classes, we only knew. Everyday, we used to plan an excuse and bunked the subject period we did not liked to study. Our frantic runnings here and there to arrange for equipments even carved soft corners in the teachers' hearts, including the teachers and sisters we were scared of.
All these hullaballoo on Christmas ended by 20th December every year and our winter vacations commenced. The garden in my quarter's backyard would be in full bloom with seasonal flowering plants by then. There were white 'December Beauties', red Poppies and Gerberas, multicoloured Zinnias, Marigolds, Chrysanthemums, Dahlias and Roses. The wintry holidays would start with observing my parents watering the plants in the garden. Occasionally, they would point the waterpipes towards me in jest making me running around the garden to save myself from the cold water droplets. There would be the fragrance of brewing coffees and bakings of cakes and nan khatais all over the household. There would be me and my brother lazing with the storybooks under the warm blankets amidst the sweet whiffs of baked goodies. There would be my mother knitting sweaters with multi-coloured wools while father would be pulling a joke or two on the structures of the knitted sweaters. The orange peels would be out in the garden for sun-drying. The sun-dried ones would be sorted for making a grounded powder essence for the orange cakes we would be carrying in our lunch boxes for the next few months. The evenings would be reserved for family tea time, the only time of the year when we were allowed to taste the specially blended black tea made by father or a mug of coffee to beat the chills.
As the days passed, the fragrances weakened signalling the reopening of school after the vacation. My mother would start to check our notebooks to find out whether we had been completing the vacation homework. A spurt of scolding would continue to resonate the air instead of the baking fragrances. The last days of December would go in frenzy yet we would be scribbling my homeworks till the very morning the school started again.
