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'Eating Christmas' and 'jumping the Year' Kenyan style

Staff and Revellers enjoy as they usher new year at Buraha Zenoni in Nakuru on December 31, 2021. [Harun Wathari, Standard]

The week between ‘Eating Christmas’ and ‘Jumping the Year’ is usually one of eating, reflection, and big dreams. Video entertainment abound, the best in 2021 involves farm children turning ignored local waste material into ‘band’ instruments to play, and enthusiastically dance to, the tune of Feliz Navidad.

There usually are three days of indulgence in ‘Eating Christmas’, looking happy and heightened commercial activities. Serious employers hold Christmas parties to appreciate workers. Some people in urban areas engage in temporary migration to ‘uchago’, meaning supposed ancestral rural homes to ‘Eat Christmas.’ All often carry Christmas ‘gifts’ in the form of big bread, sugar, unga, and assorted clothing items.

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