Christmas Day

I hate Christmas. I hate it with a passion, I have unconditional hatred for Christmas and anything associated with it; tinsels, baubles, carols, yule logs, pudding, turkeys, Brussels sprouts, stuffing, mistletoe, trees, mulled wine, socks, chimneys, sleighs, reindeer, gifts, acts of charity.  

You get the gist. 

 I hate Christmas because every year, every fucking year, you’re supposed to be happy and jolly and glad when the Christmas period rolls into town and the shops put up the decorations and slash the prices of items they conveniently increased just before the sales so that it appears as if they reduced the prices of their items when they actually had not.  

Deep breath.  

I hate how everyone in the office becomes excited for the office party and Secret Santa and everyone becomes as talkative as a bus full of secondary school children on their way home or to a fight or to engage in senseless and technically illegal sex at three in the afternoon.  

This is the same office that had everyone walking on tiptoes, and no one could look in another’s eye during the Brexit referendum, the following general election and the general election after that general election.  

I hate the pretence. I hate that I am nothing but a bolt in the grand capitalist machine, and I despise the fact that I must conform in order to survive. 

So I chat with my colleagues in the office, I make up plans about how I am going to spend Christmas with my family, I tell them I am spending Christmas with my family and that extended family will be joining us from Nigeria to experience a ‘British Christmas’. I regurgitate hopes that it will snow: Can you imagine Jemma? A white Christmas would be so splendid wouldn’t it? 

It is all a lie. A big fucking falsehood. I don’t care if it rains, or snows, or thunders on Christmas, I don’t care about my family in Nigeria or in Britain, I don’t care about Secret Santa, and I didn’t even care when I got a banana two years ago. (I know it was you, Liam, your guilt-ridden partner in the crime confessed because he was at the Emirates Stadium when Aubameyang had a banana thrown at him and he hated how the press all described it as a ‘missile’ and didn’t like how it portrayed his lovely Spurs. I thanked him for the confession and made a point to remind him of his Jewish heritage before telling him I was going to spit in your coffee every day until I handed in my resignation, and if he told anyone I would rat him out to my one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-three followers on Twitter and everyone in the world would know because it would go viral thanks to the steadfastness of black Twitter when it came to issues of race; racists are not tolerated, followed closely by coons and colourists) 

Deep breath.  

I never used to hate Christmas, I used to love it, I used to look forward to it as much as the next person. But I guess shit happens.  

***** 

Papa and I were best friends, I could tell him anything (well, almost anything) without the fear of judgment or excessive castigation. We did several things together; he would watch Arsenal games with me and I would watch Chelsea games with him, we would go to the cinema together if a movie starred Denzel Washington or had something to do with black history, we would go to a gastro-pub after and discuss what we had just seen, if it made sense, if it made either of us momentarily angry at the injustices meted out by white people onto black people, if racism could ever be defeated. He would always end the conversations by taking a long pull of his beer, setting the glass on the table emphatically and asking me about school, and later, college. He tended to do it when he felt he was losing the argument. I would laugh heartily on the days it didn’t irk me.  

My mother feigned jealousy at our relationship, and sometimes when Papa and I went out she would retaliate by treating my twin sisters to ice cream or some other treat aimed at getting a reaction from me or my father. When we returned home, she would find a way to drop it into the conversation, and we would remind her that she was paying for two people whilst Papa was not. Mama would shrug and say she didn’t care, and I would retire to my room and leave them teasing each other until they got bored. 

Everything changed after that Christmas.  

Everything.  

***** 

My excited twin sisters burst into my room and Fikayo, the perpetually exuberant one, throws herself onto my bed and does her best to envelope me with her frame.  She cannot, so squealing excitedly, she inserts herself under my duvet and I suffer an assault of limbs and appendages, Fisayo, the more reserved of the two, gives me a grin and sits placidly at the foot of my quaking bed.  

“Merry Christmas” she says. 

“Merry Christmas big bro” repeats her twin sister, thumping me playfully in the chest. I groan in mock pain, turn my face to her and breathe into her face, letting her smell my morning breath. Fikayo yelps and rolls off the bed, landing on the floor with a thump.  

The three of us laugh heartily. 

I rub my eyes and sit up, pulling my duvet with me. “Why are you disturbing my life”? I say in an exaggerated Nigerian accent with a smile on my face.  

Fikayo raises her head from her position on the floor, she regards me with narrowed eyes and points an accusatory finger at me. “You came home really late last night” she says. It wasn’t a question.  

Fisayo perks up now and clears her throat. “Technically, he came home at thirteen minutes to four this morning. Which was not last night, as last night was Christmas’ Eve” she finishes correcting my sister with her trademark flourish: the pushing of her glasses higher up her nose.  

The twins are identical, yet only similar in looks and nothing else. You couldn’t tell them apart initially, but that changed when Fikayo tripped on a toy in the room they shared, now she has a scar just above her left eyebrow.  

Fikayo rolls her eyes in disgust. “You’re such a pedant” she says. 

“You didn’t even know what that word meant until I taught you, so don’t use it against me young lady” Fisayo replies swiftly. Clearly, my coming home late has been forgotten. Did I even know what a pedant was at the age of eleven?   

“I am your twin”! snaps Fikayo. 

“I’m older” states Fisayo. 

“By thirty-three minutes” Fikayo says in disgust. 

“And seventeen seconds” says Fisayo. The glasses are pushed higher up the nose once more. If she does it again, they’ll melt into her head.  

“So”? Fikayo asks, rising from the floor. “Who cares”? she continues with her hands spread out.  

“I’m just saying” says her bespectacled twin, “you can’t buy it in a market”. 

“Ok” I interject, earning myself a glare from them both. “If we are being true to our origins, Fikayo is the older twin, as the belief held in our tribe states that the first baby to come out was sent by the second baby to see if the world was suitable, and the cries of the first baby told the second baby if the world was good or not. That is why Fikayo is Kehinde, and you” I point at Fisayo “are Taye”.  

My twin sisters stare at me as if I’ve just spoken a foreign language.  

Fikayo’s eyes narrow once more. “Why did you come home at three forty-seven this morning”?  

I groan and dragging my duvet higher, cover myself with the thick bedding.   

***** 

I manage to rid my room of my sisters and fall asleep once more, and when I am awoken again, it is not by my sisters, but by a medley of aromas and music. The aromas I smell are from the kitchen and the music I hear is my father playing his Yinka Ayefele records. My stomach rumbles with hunger, I roll onto my back and retrieve my phone from where I kept it under my pillows before I slept. I look at the screen and see its nearly midday. I am still tired, but I know my parents will bitch if I stay in bed any longer. A yawn escapes from my lips and I swing my feet off my bed and sit on its edge.  

I head to the bathroom after I’ve gone through the notifications on my phone and read a passage from the Bible. My relationship with God fluctuates with the things that go on in my life; when things are great, I and the Big Man upstairs communicate frequently (I say things and He replies via His bestselling biography, or He straight up ignores me, then when I read His biography I discover why I got ignored but I cannot get mad because He knows best). When things are not great, I tend to let Him do His thing, and I do mine.  

  I look at my reflection in the mirror and grimace; I look like I went through hell and back. Ok, I freely admit that I am exaggerating, I don’t look like I went through hell and back, but I still don’t like what I see. I was too tired to wear my durag when I came in, so my hair looks unkempt and my waves aren’t neat. My face looks puffy and there are bags under my eyes.  

“Alcohol is a bastard” I say aloud.  

I heave a sigh fraught with fatigue and twist the knob on the tap. Water jets out in a powerful stream.       

***** 

I step out of the bath, one wet foot at a wet foot’s time, and begin towelling myself dry. The bath was needed, I feel rejuvenated and fresh. I say bath and not bath, because technically, I didn’t have a bath. At least not by the ‘lofty’ standards of the western world. My bath constitutes the application of water (warm in this case, when I was in the thick of the Nigerian heat, it was cold) onto my body from a receptacle (also known as a bowl) which retrieved the water within it from another larger receptacle (also known as a bucket). I remember the time a plumber came to fix a pipe and commented that he had tried the ‘Caribbean way of bathing’ when he went to Barbados for a friend’s wedding. I chuckled and decided not to tell him that it was most likely an ‘African way of bathing’ as hundreds of Africans were taken from their homeland to work the plantations of the white man.  

It wasn’t worth it.  

I wrap the towel around my waist and swing the door open just as my father is about to knock on it. He jumps back in shock and I laugh. I bend forward at the waist, a hand on my towel and greet him in Yoruba. My father and I are similar in height, but where he is portly with broad shoulders, I am slender and muscular (the gym and the genes). Apart from that, we very much look alike, and anyone would tell that I am his son. When I see the pictures he has of himself when he was my age, the face I see is mine 

My father smiles at me, showing me his teeth and replies in English. “You are alive? Your sisters said you were snoring like a zombie” 

I smile and shrug as if to say ‘maybe’.  

“Anyway, Merry Christmas and kuro ko je n to” he says.  

 I step out of the way so he can get in and the door closes sharply behind me.  

“Merry Christmas Dad”! I call out.  

My stomach rumbles, I am hungry, and my mother’s food is calling me.  

***** 

Alas, it wasn’t my mother’s cooking I smelt when I woke up. 

 ‘Twas the cooking of my beloved sisters. I met them in the kitchen, wearing matching aprons and mischievous grins on their face. Alarm bells began ringing in my head, when they cooperated, Fisayo and Fikayo were an unstoppable force that tended to get up to no good.  I looked around and took in the kitchen, the counter was as messy as you would expect it if you had two eleven-year olds ‘cooking’; broken egg shells and a few onion leaves, the pedicels of what I guessed were from tomatoes and peppers, the wrappers of Maggi cubes, spilt milk, a few soggy tea bags, the sugar tin was open, its lid soaking in a puddle of milk, granules strewn across the counter, bacon packaging, a bag of hash browns from Iceland, and a carton of orange juice (with the cap on, thank God).  

“Wow” was all I could hear myself say.  

“Merry Christmas” says a beaming Fikayo. 

“Do you not have anything more to say beyond that”? I reply. 

She sticks her tongue out at me and her Fisayo imitates her. 

“O ga o” I hear a voice behind me say, it is my mother. I turn around and prostrate for her.  

“Morning Mama, e ku odun” I say.  

She gives me a warm hug when I get up. I smell perfume and cocoa butter, smells that I had become accustomed to from a lifetime of hugging my mother.  

“Nice of you to join us” she says sarcastically. Mama, true to form from previous years, is already wearing her Christmas jumper. Her face is lightly made up and her hair is in neat, intricately laid braids. She looks beautiful and her skin glows. 

I groan and give her a smile. “Mama please, I know I said I will cook Christmas breakfast. I promise I will do it next year. But to be honest, if we are calling it a spade, who eats breakfast on Christmas”? 

Mama clicks her tongue and gives me a disapproving look; her hands go on her waist and she cocks her head to one side. “Olatunbosun Peter Oluwole! You said that last year, yet here we are” she says.  

“True” says Fikayo. 

“Very true” says Fisayo.  

“Yo” I say, turning to my sisters “Can we not do this on Christmas? Must the two of you always gang up on me”? 

They glance at each other, communicating silently the way twins do, then they look at me and both say “Yep” in unison. I roll my eyes at them. 

Mama is about to say something, but the landline begins ringing and cuts her off. She hurries to the living room to answer the ringing phone, muttering under her breath that the call was probably from Nigeria. I make a silly face at my sisters and follow her into the living room.  

“Hello”? she says when she lifts the phone from its cradle. I assume there is no response on the other side because she frowns and repeats herself, and then she places the phone in its cradle, ending the phone call.  

“You hung up”? I ask her. 

She shakes her head. “No, whoever was on the line hung up” 

“Probably someone from Nigeria flashing you” says Fikayo from the kitchen in an exaggerated Nigerian accent, sending a playful jibe our mother’s way.  

“Yes, your dad’s mum probably” retorts our mother swiftly, her way of letting Fikayo know she was on the ball.  She lifts the telephone and dials a few numbers. Each depressing of a button produces a light beep from the phone. She places the phone to her ear and falls silent.  

“Shit then” I say with a chuckle, I hear Fisayo laughing in the kitchen too; our paternal grandmother died seven years ago. I sit on one of the two armchairs in the room and switch the television set on with its remote control.  

“Nawa o” says Mama, she places the phone back into its cradle again.  

“Kini”? I ask, flicking between channels quickly to see what’s on.  

“I dialled one-four-seven-one; it was a UK number that called just now” 

“UK number”? That rarely happens, most of the time when we get drop-called or flashed, it’s from a Nigerian number, their way of telling us to call back. I see nothing worth watching on it and settle for Sky Sports News.  

Mama looks at me and seems to see me for the first time, she glances at the television and frowns. “It’s like you’re unwell, right”? she asks me.  

“Ma”? I say, feigning ignorance. Sky Sports are giving a report on the football matches taking place tomorrow. Boxing Day is also Manchester Derby day, and as much as I don’t like either team, I don’t want United to win the title this year, which seems even more likely as they are eight points ahead of their rivals.  

“Get up from there and help your sisters in the kitchen” she orders.  

“But they are more or less done” I protest. A clip from Manchester City’s press conference yesterday plays on the screen. 

Mama says nothing and gives me a withering look.  

I flick the television off and head to the kitchen.  

The landline begins ringing again.  

***** 

By design, we had our breakfast separately. There was no requirement to eat our breakfast together although, dinner later today was going to be eaten together, no one had the choice to do otherwise. Apart from the bit of eggshell that I chewed on, the breakfast my sisters prepared wasn’t that bad. The eggs were light and fluffy with the chopped onions adding a soft crunch to the meal, and the bacon strips were nice and crisp, just the way I liked them. The eggshell had to be addressed though.  

The landline rang once more, and like previous times, the caller hung up without saying a word. 

***** 

“What’s the time Mr Wolf”? 

“Dinner time”!! 

My sisters, squealing and giggling race down the staircase so loud and fast that Papa admonishes them in Yoruba.  

I look up from my PlayStation 4 to check the time. It is dinner time. This is the meal that we always have as a unit. I save my progress on the game I am playing and put the console on ‘Rest’.   

“Merry Christmas”! chime my sisters in unison when I get to the dining table. I am the last to arrive. Papa is on his phone, reading glasses firmly on his face, Mama is still in the kitchen.  

“I swear if I hear that one more time, I’m not cooking breakfast next Christmas” I say as I take my place on the table. It is shaped like a pentagon, the deliberate work of Mama, who changed the table shortly after the twins were big enough to sit at the dining table and feed themselves. Mama didn’t want me sitting unaccompanied, so a five-sided table for a family of five solved her problem.  

Still on his phone, Papa clears his throat; his way of telling me he disapproves of the phrase ‘I swear’.  

The twins smile triumphantly at me and stick their tongues out.  

All I can do is roll my eyes. Annoying genetic contraptions.  

The dining table is laden with casserole dishes and bowls of various sizes, looking at all the food makes me realise how hungry I am; jollof rice, fried rice, mac n cheese, roast potatoes and vegetables, pigs-in-blankets, sausage rolls, vegetable rolls and coleslaw. Amid the beautiful arrangement before my eyes was a space reserved for the turkey.  

Mama walks in with said turkey in a baking tray as the landline starts to ring. She clicks her teeth in slight irritation.  

“It better not be the person that’s been flashing our line all day” she says.  

Papa perks up at this and looks up from his phone. “Someone’s been doing this all day”? he asks in Yoruba. 

“Yes, have you not heard the phone ringing”? Mama replies, also in Yoruba. Whenever they speak with each other, it is almost always in Yoruba, but they mix it with English when speaking to us.  

Papa rises from his seat, his mobile slips into his pocket. “I have, but I thought it was just standard Christmas calls” he says with a shrug. He lifts the ringing phone from its cradle, places it on his ear and says nothing.  

We all pause what we are doing and watch in silenced expectation and curiosity, even Mama has stopped with the tray still in her grasp.  

Then, Papa speaks.  

“Hello”? he says gruffly with a frown, he glances at the twins and winks at them. They giggle.      

The caller says something we cannot hear, but Papa’s faux frown becomes authentic.  

“Who is this”? he questions, first in English and then in Yoruba. 

 Mama realises she’s still holding the turkey and sets the baking tray in its pride of place on the table. She retrieves a cloth from her back pocket and wipes her hands with it.  

Papa’s frown has become an angry grimace. 

“Are you mad? Who is this”?  

“Daddy put the phone down” Mama says. Papa glances at her and holds a hand up, palm facing outward, telling her to hold on.  

The caller says something Papa does not like, because the next thing he says is “Ko de ni da fun e, omo ale” followed by a string of curses in Yoruba. 

“Daddy”! rebukes Mama.  

Fikayo laughs, the only one that could find humour in such a situation, she is met with a glare from Mama and she stops abruptly, Fisayo rolls her eyes at her sister and shoots a puzzled look my way, I know nothing, so I can only shrug. 

Papa ends his chorus of curses with a cheery “Merry Christmas to you and yours”, he ends the call and the irony of it all make the twins burst into laughter. I cannot help but see the funny side of it too and I laugh with them.  

Mama, however, is brimming with Christmas essence and does not approve of such language on Jesus’s birthday.  

“Baba, there was no need for that” she says, giving me the glare she had just given Fikayo.  

Papa waves her off with a hand and sits on the table. “Let us eat please” he says. 

“Merry Christmas” says Fikayo with a giggle. I bury my face in my hands; I give up with this brat.  

We hold hands, close our eyes, and pray. Each person on the table says a short prayer, starting with the twins and ending with Papa, the head of the family.  

The food is divine, we eat and drink and make merry. In our matching jumpers we look as united as possible. I am about to tuck into an extra portion of turkey when the doorbell rings. I pause with my fork held in mid-air. All eyes are on me.  

“But I am eating” I protest.  

“So are we” Papa replies, waving a turkey heavy fork round the table.  

“This is slavery, just so we are all clear on that”. I drop my fork on the plate and rise from the table.  

“It’s called being a man” Mama says. Her plate is almost empty, as much as I want to suggest she open the door, I know it is not worth the grief she’ll give me. 

I roll my eyes at this and drink from my glass of water before heading for the door, muttering a string of complaints sotto voce.  

“Who is it”? I call out as I get closer to the door. No answer, instead, the doorbell rings once more.  

“Hold on, hold on” I say. I check the peephole but see no one, a puzzled expression crosses my face and heaving a tired sigh, I open the door.  

Standing before me is a woman, younger than Mama but older than me, she is clad in black from head to toe: black woolly hat, black coat zipped all the way up, black gloves, a pair of black denim jeans, and black boots. She is clutching the hand of a young boy, I’ll say maybe six or seven, wearing a woolly Christmas cap and a blue winter coat.  

I look at the woman quizzically, she shuffles uncomfortably on her feet but doesn’t say anything, instead, she pushes the boy forward.  

“Hello, I am your brother” he announces, his voice transmitting loud and clear on the crisp, Christmas air. “Merry Christmas”. 

Behind me, a plate shatters on the floor.