Submitted by The Scout
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There is always something special about this time of the year. Even for those who do not believe in Christmas still will have that feeling of giving and friendship. I remember, as a young boy, they were many little things each of us were designated to do be it scrub the floor, weed the yard, catch that special cock to purge for a week before it is killed, even bring marl to spread around the house for a “White Christmas” – making our own decorations from crape paper and post cards.
A few day before Christmas was time to cut a piece of “mile” tree or cherry tree to be our Christmas tree, the decorations were all handmade. Then that time for the tar ham or salted ham that was strung up in the house for months to come down and start boiling or baking. The smell of coconut bread and pound cake, and great cake, would lick you down as you walk through the village.
Christmas Eve was extra special for that was the time for carolling throughout the village, and households looked out for us and they would have eats and drinks prepared for us as we moved around the village. However, our activity had to come to an end for us to prepare for either mid-night mass or 5AM service. After service is visiting time to friends’ houses for a lime and eats again then home for that special Christmas lunch – green peas and rice, doved peas, jug-jug, pork, chicken (yard-fowl) and red juicy mixed with coconut water. By the time we were finished our little bellies were popping.
This time of the year was special and seemed to take too long to come now if you sleep too long you would have missed a Christmas season as people prepare for another. Oh for the lovely times we used to have, times of sharing and giving and generally having a true family life within the entire village. Our young ones are missing that special warmth that we made as children, commercialism as taken over the season and many people overextend themselves . It is time to return to the joy of Christmas. Live within our means at this time of year and we would be able to once more enjoy the true meaning of Christmas.
To one and all, especially those who “cussed” me through the year, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, just enjoy the season and remember those less fortunate than ourselves and help them to enjoy the season too. Merry Christmas or Seasons Greetings and may 2012 be the year where good health be yours and your family.
Thanks again to everyone who posted well wishess on belaf of the BU household.
To the BU Family
Seasons greetings!
Wishing you all the best!
Special greetings to lemuel (my intellectual stimulator?), Zoe,Techie, and BAF and, yes, ac and anthony. All rest the rest too (lol)!
Enjoy but don’t overdo.
Miller the anunnaki.
Happy Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa Holiday
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE8A097E255B1D51B
Wait where is everybody. i just woke up myself after a nite of heavy parting. Wait a minute don.t tell me that all wunna gone sleep wid the fowls after all it is just 8.oo o;clock. any how i gonna have myself a piece of sweetbread and maybe some vodka wid a bit of lemon. and listen to some more Davis;s Xmas music.
BTW i noticed some guy here looking fuh he women after a year LOL!wuh dam.
David i promise you a SEXY Cougar but i tink yuh kinds scared maybe Hants might be up to the challenge especially living in de cold everthing is frozen STIFF
Comfort Ye
And the Glory of the Lord
My final submission of The Messiah
Since “Merry Christmas the Bajan Way” for an increasing numbers of Bajans is now morphing into Christmas shopping for themselves, friends and loved ones in internet shopping emporiums – as opposed to battling the crowds and choosing from a more limited and probably pricier selections of goods in Bridgetown – I thought this would be an appropriate thread to post this article, originally from Mother Jones magazine:
The Nasty Truth About the Online Retailers You Probably Used for Your Holiday Shopping
The workers who box the stuff we order online are often treated terribly.
Since June, I’ve been ruining my friends’ online-shopping lives. Back then, I reported on a vast warehouse in Ohio where goods bought from online retailers are sorted, boxed, and shipped to consumers. Unsurprisingly, this job does not pay well. A little more surprisingly, this job seems designed to crush employees’ spirits. During my visit, two people got fired within 10 minutes, one for talking to someone while he was working—”Where are you from?” was the offending comment—and one for going to the bathroom too much. So occasionally, and now more that it’s the holidays, my friends and family will call to complain that “Bleh, I want to order something from Amazon/Walmart/Staples/whatever, but I feel guilty about helping oppress workers.”
Why would online retailers be so mean? Well, in the case of many, they have helpfully outsourced interaction with workers. When Walmart started selling its merchandise on the internet, it turned to third-party logistics contractors, or 3PLs, experts who could handle the, uh, logistics, like warehousing and transportation, of online sales. Take Exel, for example, the largest 3PL in the country, and a subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL, one of the largest companies in the world. Exel alone has 86 million square feet of warehouse all over North America and processes literally millions of goods every single day. Other retailers directly perpetrate the oppression. Amazon.com made headlines earlier this year when 20 current and former employees of its Breinigville, Pennsylvania, warehouse told the local Morning Call that workers were fainting in stifling heat and getting yelled at for not meeting ridiculously high productivity goals and generally being “treated like a piece of crap.” Employees who were sent home with heat exhaustion were disciplined; a local ER doc eventually called OSHA and reported “an unsafe environment.”
Either way, many of the people actually loading and unloading trucks, packing boxes, and pasting labels work not for retailers, or for 3PLs, but for yet another company: temporary staffing agencies. When an online retailer (especially one that doesn’t actually make anything) wants to wring out the most profit possible, it helps to have a labor pool that is on demand, so it can order the exact number of humans it needs to fill that day’s number of orders if the humans are working at top capacity. That way, workers can’t unionize or be legally entitled to decent benefits. That way, the online retailer can give them outlandish productivity goals, like hundreds of orders and thousands of items per day apiece—and when workers burn out, just replace them with the next temp, who can join the rest of the ranks living in fear that they won’t make their numbers and might be incessantly berated for it, or simply fired. Even if you meet the outlandish goals, don’t necessarily expect to be rewarded by say, a real job. As with so many in the industry, the warehouse in Ohio are mostly “temps”—even though some of them have been working in the same place for more than a year.
Continued at:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/153556/the_nasty_truth_about_the_online_retailers_you_probably_used_for_your_holiday_shopping
Thanks for sharing this beautiful music and memories of old time Barbados Christmas. Happy Xmas to all. I feel that I’m part of the BU family now. So have a good one. Don’t drink too much. Island Gal, Pat I think we are few of the women here so lets have a drink…BAFBFP you gotta ease up off de women at least for the holiday season. David this blog is de bomb. Sizzling with interesting content. Have a great one. At George C, Hants, Antz, Adrian, Carson, ac, Lemuel, Sarge, Oilman, Ccout, et al – and all the rest too many to remember, it was nice reading your views.
Here’s one from Joseph Niles for all the BU family.
Alittle Soul
Some Stevie Wonder
Local favourite
Eartha Kitt
A little coquettish?
Temptations
The Four Tops
I’m gonna Take five
To the Jazz aficionados who are tired of the interminable Xmas music, here’s something to soothe your soul.
David; Thanks for providing a wonderful medium to discuss everything thats happening around and to the BU gang, from CCC to MillertheAnnunaki, I wish you all a blessed holiday season.
To Word Song:
Thanks and Happy new Year.
How about this one by Joseph Niles. Not Christmas but beautiful.
Gives thanks we made it to experience another Christmas.
Thank God its Christmas by Queen
Just exactly why is Santa Clause such a jolly, happy soul? Well, here’s a hint; it’s not just from overindulgence in Mrs. Clause’s rum filled egg nog or poncha crema.
Apparently around Christmas time Santa also likes to snack on some red and white mushrooms with certain, er…. “magical” properties.
Santa would be well advised when traveling through US airspace to be on the lookout for DEA agents. If they happen to become suspicious they might want to search his sleigh and no doubt they will have some questions about that mysterious vegetable matter apparently hidden in the bottom of the sack piled high with toys.
A Blessed and Merry Christmas to the BU family.Wishing you all a healthy and productive 2012.
@David and BU family. Happy holidays. I love parang music. Miss my school days in Trinidad.
BARBADOS IS A BLESSED COUNTRY ! I went to B’Town on Christmas Eve; a former student, 11 years of age, got up in the bus and gave me his seat. Old age, geriatric looks or whatever, on my part, I felt honoured that I have made the difference and have the respect of, at least, one 11 year-old young man. I was in Holetown yesterday. I saw Opposition Leader/Former P.M., O.S. Arthur and his younger daughter shopping. No body-guards, no security men. They had to get in the queue like everybody else to pay for their purchases. WE ARE STILL A PEACEFUL COUNTRY ! Our politicians can still walk around without fear of injury, insults or harassment. PEACE ON BARBADOS AND MERCY MILD, GOD BLESS EVERY POLITICIAN, MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD !!
The materialistic approach by global societies is reflected in the following story.
i hope every one enjoy their Xmas and got whatever the wished for as for me i received most everything . Now onwednesday it is off to mall to returned some SPEEDOS which i got . but come to think of it maybe BAF can use them.
BTW i was hoping Bonny would have drop to Wish BU. Bonny where are you. THere is a rumour going around here on BU. Please say it ain’t so.