Driving to work the other morning the radio DJ played Band Aid’s “Do They Know it’s Christmas”. It was a moment that conjured up memories that included my best friend V, dancing to George Michael and despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise, a not so worldly teen existence.
That song is rife with references to my mis-spent youth, I can identify each one of the voices, a testament to how much time I spent listening to the radio and watching bootleg MTV. It also reminded me of the do-gooder passion I once had, to save the world, to preserve our heritage, to, well, to do a lot of things. What happened?
In the twenty-four years since that song, some things have changed, but not so much that we don’t need to be reminded that there is still world hunger. That people are still dying in Africa and elsewhere for the stupidest of reasons in “our world of plenty”.
I’m a West Indian, Christmas for us is a time of family, food and fun. We do with all our hearts. This year as I indulged in my ritual closet clean for my friend’s charity haul I realised that I will not be indulging in Christmas, it has become an expensive luxury at a time when I have much else to do.
Will I miss the pastilles, ham, fancy biscuits, and all those other things that we MUST have for it to be Christmas? No, I won’t, I will miss seeing my little brother who is working and will not be home. I'll drink to the friends I lost or said good-bye to, thank goodness I had Granny for another year. The hound and I will continue our tradition of the beach on Christmas Day, I get to watch waves pound the beach be happy, heh gets to displace a heck of a lot of sand! And yes, there will be singing along to Band Aid and hats off to Bob Geldof for having the courage of his conviction to do something, to try to change the world.
http://www.bobgeldof.info/Charity/bandaid.html
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