A Unique Christmas - St Vincent and the Grenadines

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, if you find yourself humming the tune to “Twelve days of Christmas”, you’ll soon realise that you need to subtract three days from the song. From December 16th to 24th, nine mornings before Christmas, locals participate in the annual Nine Mornings Festival, which spans nine days of festivities from 4 a.m. to dawn. Christmas Vincy style is a unique celebration. While the islands share many of the similarities that define Christmas festivities in the Caribbean and around the world, this particular festival ensures that Vincentians have a distinctive story to tell. Locals wake in the early morning and take part in a multitude of activities including church services, fetes (parties), beach limes, street concerts or go to the capital of Kingstown to take in competitions that include singing and fun competitions such as speech making, beer drinking and banana eating, crying, laughing, ‘ring play’ games and story telling. Imagine dancing, carolling, and taking in the sound of steelpan bands and other music bands in the wee hours of the morning. In the rural areas, the final morning of the festivity usually ends with a steel band “jump-up”. In recent years, people have taken to the ‘lighting up’ of towns, villages, commercial buildings, churches and private homes. This is their way of promoting peace and love for the Christmas. The Nine Mornings Festival is one of, if not, the largest, cultural event on the local calendar. This year’s festival features over 65 communities spanning St Vincent and Bequia in the Grenadines, all competing for honours. According to the St Vincent and Grenadines Ministry of Tourism: “The origins of this festivity are clouded in some mystery, although the original tradition relates it to the ‘novena’ of the Catholic Church on the nine days before Christmas. It is believed that after the early morning church services of the Catholics, worshippers began walking the streets while others went for sea baths. From this the popular festivity emerged. Although popular opinion has this practice as starting during the period of slavery, it was more likely to have been a post-emancipation practice. It is also believed that in the 1920s, a Vincentian member of the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church initiated a tradition of celebrating a Christmas novena in the early hours of the morning.” The Nine Mornings Festival in St. Vincent and the Grenadines has also become a major visitor attraction – according to the Ministry of Tourism – with the month of December having the highest number of tourist arrivals. For more information on the Nine Mornings Festival, visit www.svgtourism.com. Photo source: www.svgtourism.com. To check out MACO magazines, visit macomag.com.