I Don’t Need Your Hampers – President Mills

Tomorrow, December 1 2010, marks the beginning of the Christmas season – the month which Christians and non-Christians all over the world use to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ (Anabi Issah to the Muslims). It climaxes on December 25, Christmas Day, which tradition has as the day on which Christ was born.

The next day, December 26, Boxing Day, is the day gift boxes are traditionally unwrapped and the festivities extend into the New Year, with more gifts and revelry. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly in history when Christmas was institutionalized, but 2010 years after the death (or birth) of Christ, his birthday has become the world’s biggest and probably most lucrative celebration, spawning a multi-billion dollar industry in gifts and other merchandise.

In the 2000 or so years of the yuletide’s history, some accustomed features like Christmas trees, gift hampers, lunches, dinners, family reunions and other associations of the Christmas fest have remained unchanged.

Exchange of gifts – from simple Christmas cards to elaborate hampers form an integral part of every Christmas festivity. A celebration of the period without a neatly-boxed “something” from a friend, family or relation would mean a Christmas, not well celebrated at all!.
So much is gift-giving and receiving an integral part of the yuletide that Boxing Day had become as significant as Christmas Day itself.
Some people have erroneously associated it with the pugilistic sport of “boxing”.

In Ghana, which has a great Christian population, Christmas is big and gift-giving and receiving at Christmas have become the norm. Many people have come to look up to the yuletide as the one and only period they can expect to receive gifts of some stuff which they would normally not be able o afford. A hamper, with an assortment of goodies is very much everyone’s favourite, but since last Christmas, a pall has descended on this old and much-beloved tradition of giving and receiving of gifts, because around December last year, Ghana’s president, John Evans Atta Mills was reported to have rejected loads of hampers presented to him as Christmas gifts from corporate bodies and individuals alike, more or less throwing scorn over the entire culture of Christmas gifts.

The president, according to reports put out by his media handlers said he would rather have those hampers donated to the cause of the poor and even asked persons who had intentions of bringing some more a the time to back off – almost saying “I don’t need your hampers”. All of a sudden hampers became taboo and that part of the Christmas industry seemed like a sector in distress because corporate/government institutions did not want to be caught on the wrong side of the chief executive of the Republic of Ghana.

The President may have had an intention not meant to destroy the spirit of Christmas generosity, but his reaction was seen by some people as churlish and that of a spoilsport who could damage an important part of the end-of-year economy. Hampers are a very important part of the Christmas economy, the retail sector’s performance during the Christmas/New year period is used as an index to determine the overall performance of some economies. If hampers are blacklisted, a significant portion of that economy would have been killed.

Source: The Mail