After ‘eye clear’, enter the longest month…

Perhaps there is nothing more miserable than being broke during the Christmas season, notwithstanding its positive religious significance.

This is when many literally lose their minds and go on a splurge and a binge as if there is no tomorrow, simply because after all, ‘afe aso’ (the year has come to an end), praise God! Why can one not let the hair down for a change, for having made it to the end of the year, even if it means a little financial indiscipline?

It is the season for ’afehyia pa’ telephone calls and messages, parties, pub-crawling, and for ‘bronya adze’ (Christmas presents), among others.

I have lost count of the number of requests (demands?) from all manner of persons for their ‘bronya adze’, perhaps basking in the illusion that it is a one-way street.

My default position is to simply ask calmly and with a smile, ‘Where is mine?’ It usually shuts down the conversation after a brief stutter in reply.  

Defensive Christmas philosophy

If you are a family person with many holes in your pocket or purse and nothing to write home about by way of your bank balance, it can be particularly galling having to contend with the expectant faces of your children.

Of course, for children, ‘bronya’ is a magical season, and they look forward to the usual goodies that the season brings.

Your in-laws may also be harbouring an expectation of a decent Christmas package. If you are lucky, your benevolent employer may grace your kitchen with the almost obligatory rice, cooking oil and tomato paste.

I suppose when one is broke, the best approach to Christmas is to pretend it does not exist, button down and allow its jingle bells to ring themselves out.

Easily, one can turn philosophical about it all and convince oneself that, really, the sun rises and falls in the same place whether on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day or indeed any other day in the year. 

I have in the past adopted this posture during a particularly dry Christmas as my defence mechanism, persuading myself that the true message of Christmas had all been lost in modern consumerism, greed and excesses, and that it was all vanity.

It worked in a way to help cope, but I knew deep within me that I was quite miserable on account of my temporary poverty.

Troublesome, long January

Whether one is broke or not, the Christmas season eventually comes to a close, and one must wearily resume work or school and its attendant humdrum.

It can be quite depressing when the realisation hits you in the face just after New Year’s Day.

Naturally, many would have raided their bank and mobile money accounts to have a good time during the holidays, and when it is all over, what has become known on the streets as ‘eye clear’ sets in - December salary long disappeared into an abyss, bank balances in the red, and school fees staring in the face as children prepare to return to school, among many others.

My friend and brother, Kwabena Peprah, has been waging a relentless campaign on Facebook every Christmas season over the past few years, urging parents to remember the looming school fees obligation when diving into the Christmas frenzy.

It takes great discipline to abide by such advice.

January always looks like the longest month in the Gregorian calendar, with its payday seemingly many light-years away.

It is only the uninitiated who dare to organise weddings and funerals to take place in the middle of January.

This is certainly not the month to be patronising fancy restaurants and eateries.

Roasted plantain with groundnuts also features heavily on many workers’ lunch menus in January, even though these days, ‘Kofi Brokeman’, as it has been christened, is not particularly cheap.

Post-Christmas, the ‘broke class’, who had been seething and lying low during the holidays, can allow themselves a sense of smugness.

They can afford to snort in bemused derision at the ‘partying class’, who had been having fun as if the holidays would never end and are now staring at the ‘broke tunnel’.

Indeed, January is a great leveller. 

Business class hopes

The ‘broke class’, like the economy cabin of an aircraft, is no fun place to be, especially on long flights.

To argue that Christmas is like any other time of the year is to pretend that business class is no big deal when flying, just because, at the end of the day, all passengers arrive at their destination city at the same time.

It is what some call ‘poverty talk’, masquerading as philosophy and simplicity.

Christmas should be a time of great fun for all, even if it leaves a little dent in one’s finances. After all, ‘afe aso’.

What is life without a dent here or there as we sail on its stormy seas?

Very boring, methinks. 

May 2026 be a year of blessings for us all, so that we can afford the beauty of the business class of life with all its goodies.

May we not have to manufacture excuses and seek sanctuary in the economy class of life, clothed in philosophy and religious modesty. 
Afehyia pa!

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng (rodboat@yahoo.com)