Steemit Engagement Challenge Week 2 || Share your Country's Culture

History/Origin of my favorite festival

How I celebrate my favorite festival

INTRODUCTION: Good day beautiful people of this community, I bid each and everyone of us welcome to the second week of this contest. Last week, I wasn't able to post in this community as my mobile phone got stolen just after day two but here I am this week to give to you one of the best post if not the best.

My advice for you is to grab a glass of water and sip through as you read.

History/Origin of my favorite festival

My favorite festival is a religious one and yeah, you guessed right it is the Christmas festival.

For some of us that might not know what Christmas is, I will start by shedding some light into what Christmas is.

What is Christmas? Christmas is traditionally a Christians festival where and when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Mind you, not that Jesus was just given birth to, it is just in remembrance of that great day. Using the Gregorian calendar, this festival is celebrated on the 25th of December which correspond to 7th January in Julian calendar.

Christmas is both celebrated by both Christians and non-Christians. I believe we know that Christians are those who believe in Jesus. During this celebration, everybody participate in many popular Christmas traditions that actually have no origin in Christianity.

Some of the popular traditions include,

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• Decorating evergreen trees.
• Feasting.
• Fireworks.
• Exchanging of gifts. You didn't forget about the three wise men in the bible, did you? No, good.

Oh, before I move on, let me quickly take us through the history of Christmas.

Christmas which is an English term and which means mass on Christ's day was earlier known as Yule which is said to have been derived from either the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl which according to history is referred to as the feast of the winter solstice. Getting interesting right? you should grab another cup of water and sit back.

Christmas became a secular family holiday in early 20th century and one mythical figure that plays a pivotal role in its celebration is known as Santa Claus. This is not the first of hearing this name right? Yes, so let us move on.

Well, up till today, one thing is unclear and that is the birth date of Jesus. Neither the New testament or Old testament in the bibles provides any clues about when Jesus was born. So how do we come about December 25?

December 25 was first identified as Jesus birth date by a man named Sextus Julius Africanus back then in 221 and was later accepted universally.

There are different views regarding the selection of this date from which I am going to mention two so I can go to the other section where I am to write on how I celebrate Christmas.

• One explanation that was disseminated widely about the date is the Christianizing of the dies solis invicti nati (day of the birth of the unconquered sun). This day is a popular holiday back then in the Roman Empire and which is celebrated in the winter solstice to symbolize the resurgence of the sun.

• Another reason regarding the selection of that date as Jesus birth date is the reasoning that established the spring equinox as the creation day of the world and the fourth day of creation, when the light was created, as the day Mary (Jesus mother) got pregnant (i.e., March 25). Adding up 9 months to that date means Jesus birth date is December 25. Interesting.

I will close this chapter by talking on the history of Christmas in Nigeria my country.

Christmas was first celebrated in Nigeria on December 25, 1842 under the Agia tree by Reverend Freeman together with Reverend Townsend. It was a special moment as it is for a lot of people.

How I celebrate my favorite festival

Ever since I had started writing on this topic, I had been smiling and even right now that I got to this section, my joy knows no bound. I am just very happy for all the memory this festival has given unto me. I am going to try to be as brief as possible and to mention few of how I celebrates the festival.

In my family, Christmas festival is a family event just like Easter and New year festival. It is a time everyone of us that lives in cities will go to our hometown together to celebrate and have fun. You can just imagine how sweet that would be, seeing those people you grew up with, your friends, your relatives...The feeling is just so awesome!

The Christmas festival is that festival that I had never missed for any reason. Due to my course of study and my location, I sometimes miss Easter festival. I studies at Ilorin in Kwara (a state in Nigeria) for some of us that might know it, a state that is separated by 170.4km by road from my hometown Ibadan in Oyo state. This distance always discourage me to travel home and has made me missed some festival.

Now, let me narrate how I celebrated the last Christmas.

On the 22nd of December 2021, my school announced Christmas break. Prior to that day, I had prepared myself down as I was waiting eagerly for the announcement. The announcement came in the evening and like I said earlier, due to the distance and due to the insecurity that is been experienced in the country, I had to wait till the next day.

At exactly 6:00am, I had set out for the journey. I got to Motor park in about 15minutes as there not too much movement on the road. One main reason why I left early is because I had missed home, another reason is that if one should get to the park late, one might not see a car again as so many people use to travel during this period.

I got home around 12pm and exchanges greetings with my parent and my sibling that are already at home. Well in my family, our own Christmas eve begins on the 23rd. I could see my younger brother preparing a turkey and my sister doing some cooking. As usual, having drop my load, I went to get an already fried meat😁.

That same night, we threw a party where we dine, laugh, share some things about life that we have faced, my dad preached the word of God, we sang so much as my brother can play drum and I can play Keyboard...What a nice day to be alive. You see why I can miss it for anything?

At a point we got tired so we went to bed. Very early on the next day, Having had morning devotion, I went to meet up with my friends that had come home to meet their family too and we went to field to play football. Have you ever played football in the rain? The feeling is so great! You should try it out. We enjoyed ourselves so much.

So many cool things still occurred that day but let me just stop it like that. Fast forward to Saturday morning (25th), We went to church to give thanks to God.

After the church service, as usual in my church, every family use to bring foods like Jollof rice, Fried rice, Pounded yam, etc., even the less privilege use to bring something and we will all eat together. I have this family that I always eat with. Let me keep the reason to myself😊 though some of my friend here can already guess the reason.

In the evening, we go out to share some Christmas card, foods with as many neighbor as possible. We will visit some of our family members where we also eat.

We are all grown up in my family so we go out to take some of my family members children to go and see Santa Claus. There, they also participated in some recreational activities I am sorry there is no enough picture to show all these things, like I said my phone was stolen just last week and this little picture up there are from the ones on the cloud.

There is many more to all of what I had written but I think this is enough for just one post. I don't have enough pictures to back my write up as my phone got stolen last week Tuesday and this was actually why I wasn't able to continue the contest last-week.

If you are still with me up to this point, I say, Thank you....I believe you enjoyed the post.

I would love it if you can drop a nice comment below. Thank you once again

Look out for my next post!