Esther’s Experiential Christmas Part 3

Hello and welcome to the third part of Esther’s Experiential Christmas! I hope you enjoyed reading the last two! This is the third and final part of this series and I had already started rounding off on my activities so I could rest and do other pending assignments.

So first things first, I went to watch Disney’s Encanto, an animation about a Colombian family that received miraculous gifts that they used to help the town. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the songs were amazing, Plus some of my favourite people, like Lin Manuel Miranda, worked on the movie. Lin Manuel wrote and composed the songs for the animation, and he has been getting the bag as he should be, having worked on numerous projects from Encanto to Vivo and Tick, tick…Boom, all released in 2021. Encanto made me a little emotional, especially at the end when the family realized that Mirabel, the main character, was also as special as they all were even if she had no gifts. Also, the song Dos Oruguitas, with its music swells, notes and accompanying visuals was the most heartwarming song.

I also assembled and decorated a gingerbread house by myself. I bought one of those prepackaged sets from Walmart that comes with everything, and after putting it together with icing as the mortar, I decorated it.

It turned out okay…the architect in me expected a better outcome like the one on the box, but I had a good time making it. Plus in my defense, piping icing is difficult and my masterpiece kind of fit the idea in my head…kind of. I wanted the icing to drop from the edges of the roof eaves like snow, and from the windows and doors – I am sure you can see the idea actualized on my gingerbread house. If you cannot see it, squint a bit and it will appear. And if you notice that the peppermints do not show up anywhere on the house, it is because I ate them.

Behold, my creation:

Later in the week, I attended a wedding. It was my first Yoruba traditional wedding or engagement as they call it. I am aware of the irony of how I left Lagos, Nigeria, the Yoruba wedding party central, for Canada, and that being where I attended my first ceremony. All the ones I had attended prior were via Instagram videos, people’s stories and their accompanying images. From this experience, the ceremony was definitely longer than I expected, but it was very fun. The lady who MCed, or the Alaga, spoke Yoruba almost throughout, with speckles of English here and there. After the ceremony which started about an hour late due to bad weather, there was good food, good people, wonderful music and just a generally good time.

Images from https://brides.ng/planning/alaga-iduro-and-alaga-ijoko-yoruba-traditional-wedding/

On Christmas Day, I went to church in the morning- usually we have a potluck, but since COVID started, the church opted to start packaging the food for each family. So I got a bag of different meals, all made by members of the church. I made the what? the meat pies!- I made about 50 of them for the Christmas lunch.

After church, I spent the rest of Christmas day indoors where, after eating, calling friends and family, I slept for a long time and played scrabble when I woke up. I think all my December movements tired me out and Christmas day was the day of rest.

This marked the end of my December holiday enjoyment. I had a wonderful, activity-filled December, and I am excited for what 2022 holds! Have a wonderful year ahead and stay safe.

Till the next post,

Cheers!