Undressing the Christmas Tree

Undressing the Christmas tree is certainly not as much fun as the dressing thereof.

When we Kriel girls dress the tree, we turn on the carols, bring out the egg nog, and make it into a fun and happy time. But usually it's only mother left to undress the precious tree when the Scatterlings leave home again to return to their own new lands and lives.

Contemplative is what one becomes on the "undressing day" always undertaken on the Twelfth Night after the birth of Christ.

This year we had three delightful spray painted sisal trees, (thanks to my dear friend Yvonne) one dressed in midnight blue and silver and two dressed in red and gold, so the occasion was three times as contemplative, and three times as lonely.

Although one tries hard not to be sad and morbid, one tends to run through ones losses at this time. The loss of precious parents, dearest Mum, she was always totally unorthodox at Christmas time.

One Christmas I found her ploughing through a muddy field with plates of tea and sandwiches for the homeless men who lived in that field. Nothing scared Mum, most people in the area would give the men a wide berth fearing their aggression, but not Mum !!

Then one begins to think of the young people in one's life who have left us, tragically, unexpectedly, leaving behind excruciating sadness and pain.

My mind drifted over the last thirty years of tumult in the country in which I was born. When we were married in 1980 virtually our entire family lived in Zim, now HeeHoo and I are the last remaining survivors.

So much water has gone under that bridge and most of it has been flood water. But even before independence, times were uncertain - my mind dwelled on my halcyon childhood when UDI was declared and in the declaration, so began the erosion of the underpinnings of Rhodesia. This poor benighted country and its equally poor benighted inhabitants have struggled to keep hearth and home together forever it would seem.

Remembering on to those who died before, during and after independence . remembering those who died fighting for independence and those who died fighting against it. Remembering those who died protecting their farms and homesteads against attack.

Remembering those who had very little, and who felt the need to fight for their own piece of land.

Remembering terrible acts by both sides during the war of independence. Remembering the Viscount disasters, New Adams Farm, Gukuruhundi, Murambatsvina, and all the other horrifying atrocities. It has been a litany of anguish for all races in Zimbabwe for decades.

Remembering those who have died of illness who need not have died, had our country managed to maintain its health system as it once was.

It was a tearful tree undressing, tenderly the angel was taken from the very top and packed in her bed of tissue ready for next year.

Maybe, by then, by the time we dress our next Christmas tree, we as a country, will have found our way forward. We pray there might soon come a time when all of us can live in peace and harmony, sharing equally the richness of this blessed country Zimbabwe.