November waddles around in America on a sugar-high glutted by Halloween’s candied offerings. Then, presto, seated at groaning Thanksgiving tables, frenzied thoughts of shopping bargains sweep us ahead to Christmas with its attendant jollity.
What a far cry from my years in the city that I knew and will always love as Bombay. Then, December limped into perspective, hobbling at the calendar’s fag end like a festive afterthought. On cool Saturday afternoons, whilst still a schoolgirl, I accompanied my mother Edith to pick out “material” for my Christmas dress, then selected snazzy matching shoes. Aunty Zeena, our family’s beloved seamstress–she of the magic needle and invisible seams–custom-made my holiday finery. During movie star-like ‘fittings’, darts were adjusted gently to accommodate the inevitable weight-gain that accompanied a time of year when, among other goodies, kulkuls were consumed by the kilogram.
What decadent luxury! All that long-ago primping seems sinfully vain today when I might, at most, spare a sartorial thought for the New Jersey Goan Dinner-Dance, a high point on our annual calendars. Never held on Christmas night, as is the one at the Bandra Gymkhana to which I made a habitual beeline as an enthusiastic collegian, Indian-Americans are forced to acknowledge at this early December gathering that Christmas is merely three weeks away. No matter how high the price of tickets, they still seem a bargain including a Thai meal, open bar, sleighfuls of conviviality and opportunities for unabashed nostalgia. Which puts me in mind of a popular commercial:  “Tickets–$60, Dancing Shoes–$120; Formal Outfit–$200; Reminiscences of Indian Christmases Past—Priceless!” The old order changeth…
In Bombay, my mother devoted numerous December afternoons, like some savvy Events Planner, to the creation of her fabulous ‘sweets”. Traditional Indian treats–neuris and chaklis, toffees and marzipan, rose kokis and marbles–filled brimful airtight containers. We settled for the smallest sample nibble before they were squirreled away in brown-paper lined tins to fill trays on Christmas morning bound for neighborhood destinations. What joyously aromatic family affairs had concocted those merry morsels! We sat in gossipy circles, pressing and curling dough on fork tines to make countless kulkuls in unison. As my late Aunt Anne produced dozens of bibiques, my deceased muscular Uncle Henry pressed chaklis into scalding oil, a job my father Robert assumes quite competently today.
Meanwhile, in my American kitchen I do as the Americans do—bake hundreds of cookies. Rolled cookies, piped cookies, bar cookies, tray cookies, drop cookies and molded cookies are a proud part of my repertoire. Prettily packed, they’re gifted to friends in a part of the world where homemade munchies are as much appreciated at Christmastime as whisper-soft cashmere sweaters and fur-lined gloves. And because fruitcakes, somewhat inexplicably, have a bad rap here, I always bake, fill and frost a Yule Log. The old order changeth…
Back in Bombay, Dad slaved hard yearly turning our modest home into a breathtaking Christmas wonderland with his amazing sleight of hand that included the use of fragile ‘baubles’ (some of which date from the very first year of my parents’ marriage more than half a century ago), cotton-wool strewn on branches of polyester Christmas trees and buntings fashioned from greeting cards. Since he poured his sweat equity while we played outside on Christmas Eve, we’d return home exhausted to stand frozen in our tracks. As lights twinkled and blinked before our startled eyes, we knew Christ’s birthday was imminent and we awaited His arrival with mounting tension. A pile of gifts made their sudden mysterious appearance only upon our return from Midnight mass.
In Connecticut today, we haul freshly-cut pines to cozy family dens where to the blazing accompaniment of roaring fires and Handel’s stereophonic Messiah, I sip hot mulled cider and, with my husband Llewellyn, festoon our tree with a collection of ‘ornaments’, very recently acquired. Mantelpieces, entrances, porches, hallways—every nook and cranny is jollied up with real pinecones and holly gleaned from our own garden. Then, my daughter Chriselle draws out secretive packages magically, as if from thin air, to accumulate on a tree skirt for a whole month until Christmas dawns. The old order changeth…
Meanwhile, in Bombay, his own home decorated, my brother Roger has assumed charge of my parents’ apartment, annually hauling their tree from its newspaper swaddling and positioning, with loving affection, the baubles of our childhood–aged but still attractive–a gentle reminder of times when we  lived together under one roof.
Christmas in Bombay wasn’t Christmas until our return from Midnight Mass. How little we slept that night! My brother Russel, always insistent on bagging his favorite seat, ensured we entered our pews long before the choir had cleared their throats to sound their first angelic notes. While homeward bound, we shivered deliciously, not just from the chill but from the knowledge that Santa had paid his customary visit leaving us notes in my Dad’s handwriting. Then, as we oohed and aahed over our presents, my mother emerged from her kitchen with shot glasses of ginger wine and fruit-studded cake.
In New England’s sub-zero temperatures on Christmas Eve, 3 pm sees us at family mass, amidst Italian-Americans, who after their once-yearly church visit, go home to feast on a twelve course fish dinner—one kind of fish for each Apostle—fishermen all. Taking a leaf from their Bibles, I rustle up a shrimp dinner. We’re snuggled in bed by midnight, grateful not to trudge to church along snowy sidewalks. The old order changeth…
Back home in India, Christmas morn brought affectionate relatives in droves. Extended clan-members arrived laden with cakes and gifts–my grandmother first, then each of my bachelor uncles. Dad would mix us shandy as my mother fussed over roasted chickens and pork sorpotel. They’d be carols, commotion, frequent peals of laughter and silent gratitude as we counted our blessings and rejoiced in them.
Deprived of family to call our own in America, friends fill the immigrant void. We combine forces with fellow first-generation settlers to have joint celebrations involving long distance commutes across two rivers and three state borders. We sit down to a meal we term “late-lunch-early-dinner”–a 4 pm feast that includes roasted turkeys, whole glazed hams. Raucous gift-opening follows midst the glare of flashbulbs as we capture digital moments for posterity.
Tennyson’s words from Morte D’Arthur have never been truer: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new/And God fulfills himself in many ways,/Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
Yet, though continents and contexts may separate us, much remains unchanged. Whether in Bombay or in Bridgeport, there are still carols, commotion, frequent peals of laughter and silent gratitude as we count our blessings and rejoice in them.