CHRISTMASES THAT WERE!

This Christmas I did something I normally do not do on a Christmas day afternoon: make my resolutions. It is not that I was bored or plot-less, but because if the rest of my Christmases don’t get different I might have to simply faint on every Christmas morning.

Despite a few friends having sent me Christmassy messages such as… Christ to be born in my heart…I celebrate Christ and not the day…I get to look like baby Jesus…. I tried, I tried really much to even for a few minutes focus on God and what He would be speaking into my life on such a day as Christmas, but the hustle and bustle of the day took the better of me so I resolved to sit back and just thank God that Christmas exists.

The earliest Christmas I can remember involves must-be-new –Christmas-clothes. (Santa never happened for me…I heard about him much later, on TV). Then came the Christmases I was responsible for house decorations, back then when I used to be daddy’s darling girl (that has since ceased, now he looks at me as if he suspects the hero in my life is another man, and treats me thus!). Thereafter came the Christmases I was in the kitchen up to mid afternoon making one dish after another and before we set the food on the table I would be too exhausted to enjoy the meal, and three quarters of Christmas day would be over.

Now I have with me Christmases when I go out with my family. This works out perfectly since doing Christmas decorations is surprisingly not in my list of hobbies, and staying in the kitchen halfway of Christmas day is not so up-to-date. The only bad thing with going out is that I am now so tired of it I cannot picture myself towing along anymore.

This sounds bizarre, I know, and would want to clarify that mum and dad and siblings are a rare blessing that not everyone gets to enjoy, celebrating Christmas together is unheard of in so many families, and even having the cash to lavishly spend on such a day is a privilege from God. I understand all that, and thank God.

However, the only thing I would want to retain about the Christmases that were is the bit of having to go to church. Otherwise, I would appreciate having Christmas with different people now (read person). Besides that, a time in my life has come that I do not enjoy looking up the dance stage to see kids dancing to funny -yucky music. This Christmas as I sipped my drink I watched my small brother dancing his bones dry over songs with lyrics such as “give it to me” and “the way you do me do me do me …” and felt all so fed up. Perhaps I never worried about it in the past because I never followed to the theme that the music in every other festivity site carries. Now I think of what young kids are shaking their bodies to and cant help hissing out a “Shindwo/Shindwe”.

Worse, I look at the parts of the body these kids concentrate on shaking and I wish I owned all the clubs and restaurants and gardens and villages…as in all the entertainment centers…and I would regulate if not dictate what goes on inside there! I look at the waiters who carry several soda bottles and a couple of beers for daddy and mummy and wonder how on this earth such parents will be able to tell their children not to drink alcohol in a few years time, and trust me that is a sermon they will need to preach. I try to figure out where else such families would be and I lack alternatives.

Whether we admit it or not, the culture of spending Christmas indoors is slowly facing out and more and more families are opting to go out for festivities. That is precisely where we are spoiling the festive season, since the places we go to do us more harm than good.
Now if we cannot keep our families indoors, then we better make the outdoors better. I picture myself very few years down the line with kids that I will need to take out. I picture them surrounded by “drinking “ families and I hate the sight. I imagine the blaring immoral music and instantly get bored. Let me not talk of seeing one of my own on the dancing floor shaking their small bodies to lyrics like “obsession…” because what I might do to them might make them develop permanent phobia for dance stages.

Every of my readers who is not a Christian might not so much like me after I ask this but I will ask it anyway: Why is it that almost all entertainment centers are owned by non-Christians (tell me one which is a Christian’s)? Do Christians concentrate on building prayer centers and imagine that that is where we will take our families for Christmas? Is it that we will have no alternative than to listen to “Nasinsinzia nikikuwaza…Chuki ndio nahisi….Am falling for a bad boy…” all the days that we shall want entertainment outside our homes? Is it that we do not realize we have a chance of exposing our children to stuff that builds them and glorifies Christ …Christ of Christmas?

Hey Christmas-celebrating-Christian, next time you are coming up with an idea, think of how we can make Christmas more Christian.Do not think of telling us to cuddle up in our houses and avoid the perversion outside, it is the perversion outside that we need to work on, each one of us in our small ways. Perhaps all I have is an idea. Perhaps all you have is a dream to build an entertainment center, make it Christian, this time round!

PICKY PICKY PONKIE

You must have sang that nursery rhyme…it was meant to determine who amongst us was to do a task or get the first chance in playing a game or even participate in an “exclusives” thing. (Ok, it’s what you now refer to as Random Sampling). Surprisingly, Picky Picky Ponkie seems to be the sole determinant of what ladies in my generation choose to wear. How else do we explain away the unbelievable tights, ever increasing low-cuts and the unimaginable brevity of our skirts? It is as if we go out for shopping and since we cannot make up our minds, we decide upfront that we shall buy the fourth item that lands on our hands (read even fourteenth). As such, no thought on modesty ever crosses our minds when buying clothes, and men thus ask for too much when they expect modesty to come in at the point of choosing what to wear…this problem ought to be solved at the buying point.

I learnt this when I was leading some group and on a day we were to have a presentation for a varied audience, I requested the ladies to wear skirts since I knew trousers would arouse questions of “how tight is too tight?” As you can probably guess, a good number of them had no skirts so I requested them to make a careful choice of a modest trouser from their wardrobes. I asked for too much (just like men often do), because what I saw on the material date was a perfect mismatch of Picky Picky Ponkie results. As complaints of “this all I gat” came my way all so naturally, I realized the dress code problem is one we should solve at the buying points, not in our bedrooms.

I speak as a lady, and insist that ladies must dress sensibly in lieu of the current competition we seem to be waging with prostitutes. Aish! That sounds pretty harsh I know (we have tried requesting, urging, coercing and awarding to no avail) but let me go by it because most of our most loving men will not tell us that our wardrobe choice needs more attention. I gather from reliable sources that men feel afraid to ask women to cover themselves up; they’re scared we’ll think they’re judging us in self-righteousness. They’re scared we won’t like them anymore or that we’ll blame them and say that it’s their problem, not ours.

A Christian man is quoted saying
“It’s difficult for men to find a good way to say that they’re offended when women dress immodestly at church. It’s difficult because if he says it, he sounds like a member of Sexaholics Anonymous. There is no standard way in evangelical circles for Christian men politely to ask Christian women to be more modest.”

Ladies, for politeness sake, let us give more attention to the non-verbal messages that our dress codes scream out. Adopt a modest dressing style. I am not seeking to say that you never buy a trouser, for even in the stringiest Christian circles we well know that our God is not a God of skirts versus trousers. Neither do I imply that east or west skirts save the day (I can figure out a few skirts that should never again be in my wardrobe). Simply put, let us dress modestly.

And so what does it mean to dress modestly with decency and propriety? Whatever your cultural background or generation, modesty never is universal. Modesty may take different looks but it will always be modest, no matter what generation we are in or what the current fashion may be. Modest clothes do not exploit a woman’s body or features. They will not display body parts for the purpose of drawing attention to them. Not only does modesty require that certain body parts should be completely covered, but also that the shape of our bodies should not be unnecessarily and immodestly emphasized with tight fitting clothes.

Dressing with propriety means dressing appropriately. It means there is a difference in the way we dress for a sports activity, for a casual event, and for more structured, formal occasions, such as worship. But all occasions call for modesty in our dress, whether we’re on the beach or sitting in church. Modest dress will not say “sex” or “pride” or “money.” But it certainly can say “good taste,” “attractive,” and “pretty.” They should quietly say “modest,” “appropriate,” “carefully chosen.”

Next time you are buying an outfit, do not choose one at random. Buying clothes is not a game of chance. Especially if you are a Christian woman, do not embarrass us, remember our true beauty comes from the radiance within and seek to dress in a way that directs other lady friends on what a lady of integrity ought to look like. Trust me, even though they do not want to be preached at, they want to look as if they have as much integrity as we do! When you get married and have children, please begin when they are very young to teach them to dress modestly. Men, we hope you know that fathers can have a strong influence on how their daughters dress by taking an interest, complimenting them on appropriate clothes, and setting clear guidelines and boundaries.