If you must drink alcohol this Christmas, be responsible

It’s that time of the year when people travel to be with their loved ones. Some move from town to town or from the cities and towns to the countryside, depending on where their loved ones are. Others go to the soak in the sun on our picturesque sandy beaches down coast.

The youth and the youthful at heart can’t keep at bay the urge to race their Subarus to Naivasha (Vasha), my university town - Eldoret - and other local emerging sherehe tourism spots. And oh, the summer bunnies have just flown into the country bearing us gifts from all corners of the world.

This annual exodus, as it were, is ideally meant to be fuelled by love and the need to share with others. Unfortunately, in Kenya it activates another downside that oftentimes brings out the worst in us. I have been around long enough to know that Christmas, and the birth of Jesus Christ it is supposed to signify, serves only to give us another excuse to drink copious amounts of alcohol, drive as if on a death wish and generally throw caution to the wind.

Okay, okay, I’ll spare you the sanctimony. Actually, we all don’t know for sure that the night of December 24 was when Jesus Christ was born. At least the Bible is silent about the actual date. We are told that it is my church, the Catholic Church, in the 4th Century, that did the honours of fixing a date.

Conveniently, Christmas was made to coincide with pagan festivals such as Saturnalia and the birthday of some god or other, obviously to appease the Roman empire and thus pave the way for Christianity, a religion that came to our part of the world slightly over a century ago.

Long story short, Christmas has come a long way. It has over the years evolved and soaked up all manner of rituals, largely revolving around merry-making, gifting and mindless consumerism. So much that it’s a stretch to argue that it has much in the way of roots in the Christian customs.

Be that as it may, there is no need to go into overdrive. You should not quaff generous amounts of beer and still get behind the wheel, ferry a client as many a drunk boda boda rider do, or do any other activity that requires an uncompromised sense of judgment. In my time, I have seen people go to a driving school weeks to Christmas, buy a car days to Christmas and drive to their rural home, with four to five souls at the mercy of  their shaky driving skills. A former colleague who shall remain nameless is even said to have picked up some ‘passengers’ for his maiden long drive to the countryside.

It would be pointless to advocate abstinence in this drinking country. We drink at Grade One graduation parties, children’s birthday parties and expose children to alcohol every time we take them ‘out’ on weekends ostensibly to bond but in the real sense to irrigate our throats with even more alcohol as they play in another corner of a nyama choma joint. If you are still in doubt, wait until the eve of Christmas and see for yourself the bingeing, flossing, frolicking and other excesses. People will still hire guzzlers and party like mad, the fact that this has been a very tough year economically notwithstanding. Not even the fact that Njaanuary is waiting on the other side like a hungry lion can deter Kenyans from indulging in sherehe (celebration) and doing the drive or walk of shame, as coming home from overnight drinking is called in my corner of the world.

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These excesses especially by visitors from the city have become the subject of memes on social media. I have seen complaints from upcountry folk that we only buy a few packets of wheat flour for the obligatory chapatis, frying oil and a small shopping, yet we expect a whole goat or a whole battalion of cockerels to breathe their last once we get there. These ‘woke’ upcountry folk further complain that when going back to Nairobi, we carry bananas, chickens, avocados, even maize flour, in such large quantities one would be forgiven to think that we are planning to open a food-store business.

Christmas should be a time to reflect and share, not to move around like so many headless chickens and causing pain to the wallet and to others.

And if you cannot afford to indulge like everyone around, you can find solace in the fact that we have a lot to thank God for. If you are alive and in good health, do not take it for granted that many did not make it here. For those who cannot stay in the same house with a little money when there is sherehe out there, perhaps it is time to surprise your long-suffering liver with something different; perhaps a cup of tea, a glass of milk or some uji pawa, another nutritional innovation from Nairobi.

And stay out of trouble. Two years ago someone drained a whole bottle of ice-cold water on my old face just for saying ‘hi’. This season, try to stay sober or, as we say on these shores, drink responsibly – what does that even mean? Celebrate sparingly and remember Njaanuary is just around the corner. That said, happy holidays!