THE CRIB - The Joy of Christmas

Christmas season has always been a wonderful time in Goa. No decorated malls or anything on a scale like those in the West, but it has its own unique charm. Happiness in the households and vibrant atmosphere prevails in the cities and towns during this time. The story below depicts the joy and wonder of Yuletide in Goa from the perspective of a child back in the late fifties. There may not have been many string lights those days. But a ‘star’ made from bamboo and coloured craft paper was a must and it had its own aura that said it all. As soon as the sun set, these hollow body 'stars' would be lit up by incandescent bulbs in the cities while in the villages they would be lit up by candles or oil-lamps, accompanied by bright lanterns all along the balconies. The highlight was attending the midnight mass on Christmas Eve and visiting neighbours after that. It was truly the happiest night of the year in many a home for the rich and the poor alike. It has perhaps not changed much since then.

THE CRIB – The Joy of Christmas
It was October with December, Christmas and New Year still far away. It was the time for the little boy to visualize the setting of the crib. Every year he would try to make it different than the previous year.

The boy wondered what Bethlehem must have really looked like so many years ago when Jesus Christ was born. So he shuffled through some old Christmas cards of the previous years which he kept for references in the old wooden chest, and came across a card depicting a Nativity Scene with the hills in the background and manger which was in the foreground. The Star of Bethlehem was high above in the picture. He had one long look at it and put it back where it was. So he set about with the immediate task which was to paint a back drop of a star-lit night with faint hills as silhouettes in the background. So he put his thinking cap on. He walked to the nearby town to buy a cardboard for the backdrop. He would use the existing colours in his collection and hoped they would last to paint the entire scene. He would make a small star using translucent foil with a light in it and NOT a painted one, and attached it to the backdrop itself. He would bring the soil from the fields and would grow grass in it about a week in advance on a large flat piece of wood on which he would place the crib itself. He would then 'construct' a "bridge" with water underneath and a winding path that let to the entrance of the crib. He would transplant little yellow flowered plants, which he would scoop with a trowel along with the soil that held on to the roots, from the fields nearby, trying to make it as realistic as he could, embellishing the area around the crib with some tiny shoots of flowers that grew in the garden adjoining his house.

December drew near and soon it would be Christmas time. By that time he thought he would have saved enough pocket money to buy a new Nativity Set that he would go and see every time he went to the near-by market town. He hoped nobody would buy it before he got there.

Two weeks before Christmas the boy told his mother that he would like to open his piggy bank and count the amount the small coins he had saved, so that he could go and buy the Nativity piece set. So one day he collected whatever he had and headed to the market town along with his mother to buy the set from the shop where he had seen the crib set.

"That's the shop", he told his mother, pointing to the shop as soon as he reached the shopping street. "I’ve seen it in their showcase that last time I was here", said the boy. "It’s a lovely piece, come on mother, hurry", he said, leading the way and tugging at his mother's hand.

He looked into the shop window and to his great grief the set was not there. The boy’s heart sank. They went in and enquired. It had already been sold. So they requested the man in the shop behind the cash counter to show them another set if he had. “See over there," the man said looking over his bifocals, pointing his finger to a shelf on far side of his shop. The boy turned and saw in the direction the man pointed. There it was, a set better than the one had seen before. Happily, he asked the price. Sadly, it was expensive. It was not something he could afford. "We will go to another shop and see" the boy's mother said. The boy was silent. The second shop did not have any either that suited to his little collected savings. "We will see another set in another place", his mother said.

After shopping around in the market place for groceries they returned home, but without the Nativity set.

Soon it was Christmas Eve. The whole crib was ready and lots of people from the village would come to see it after the mid-night mass. But he did not have any nativity pieces to place inside and around the crib.

Then a brilliant idea flashed past the boy's mind. Why not make a figure in the form of Baby Jesus in a cradle with outstretched hands like the one he had seen in the various Christmas cards he received the previous year. Good idea! he said to himself. But where's the clay? Too late for clay.

The boy's mother was busy in the kitchen making some last minute sweets from kneaded flour. Why not use flour instead of clay, he thought. So he asked his mother for some kneaded dough and started to make a rough form, and then slowly handcrafted a form of Baby Jesus which he himself could not believe that it turned out so well. He then let it dry and painted it and placed it inside the crib. He switched on the crib lights and there it was.

The boy joined the village folks who walked to the church to attend the midnight Mass with lanterns in their hands. Walking home after the service they sang many songs and carols. People from the village came to see his crib as usual after the midnight Mass. No one else knew his little secret about Baby Jesus in the crib except his mother. After another singing session along with the other boys and girls from the neighbourhood, the lad finally went to sleep.

As soon as he woke up the next morning the first thing he did was to see the Crib and found that 'Baby Jesus' was missing from there. He was puzzled. Did somebody steal it? Was there somebody else like himself who needed it so badly?

The puzzle was finally solved when he found out that the real culprit was the pet cat in the house. The boy decided to make another one and placed inside the crib.

A few hours later the cat was caught "red-pawed" trying to take it away the second time. So finally the third time he decided to craft one out of real clay. And uses it every year to this day.

And I know this story is true. I was that boy.
Excerpted from my book: Goa - Memories of My Homeland

Tony Fernandes