Photo Courtesy: https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/
The festive season always comes with a lot of merry and joy all over the world. It’s time for holiday and the beach coasts are full to the brim that when looked at from above, the people just seem like the safari ants all over the place. The traffic jams can be even more annoying especially when you have to take twice the time to get to your destination. The bus stations and airports are crowded and everyone is rushing in and out of towns and countries. This is the best season for hotel owners. The prices have doubled and the profit is just awesome! Customers are flooding into the hotel rooms daily and the night clubs couldn’t get busier.
Parents have always prepared for this season for as early as they can. Some start saving money as from June, with great plans for December. People don’t even mind to cut out the meat budget for the next six months, just to save for the holidays. Some go to the extent of doing extra jobs to earn extra money. Well, to what extent people can go with the preparations, is just unimaginable.
The children too are not left behind in all this merry. They could save their break time money throughout the year, and when December finally comes, it is time to break the piggy bank! Everyone has a plan ready. The girl wants to buy that new beautiful dress design that she saw at the boutique earlier on and the small boy wants the Benten toy car. The parents have budgeted for the chicken and more goodies to be eaten during Christmas and the travelling expenses to homeland.
During all this joy, everyone has forgotten that January is fast approaching and it is finally here! It is during this first week that parents remember that their children have to go back to school. Just after spending the last coins during New Year’s Eve, they start scratching their heads; there is no enough money to buy them books for the new class let alone pay the school fees. The house rent has to be paid and the landlord wants his debts paid instantly. It is now that everyone is crying in agony and full of stress. After joyfully singing merry songs throughout December, it is now that everyone is singing the gloomy, sad and touching songs. But out of the crowd, you won’t miss at least one or two smart ones who celebrated the festive season with a limit. They set aside the money for the fees, bought their children’s needs for school and house rent and thereafter is when they made plans on the holiday. They are probably smiling right now, reading this and feeling good about themselves for being responsible.
Well, every year, it is this same old story with Kenyans and I wonder when we will ever learn from the moral lessons being taught. Being organized is always very important and having a limit to everything we want is even more important. As they say, ‘do what you need and not necessarily what you want!’
