I Smell It In The Air

It's two days to Christmas, yay! I see the excitement on people's faces, most especially the children who were fortunate to have Christmas clothes already purchased for them, while others are still giving the parents a hard time. Well, that's the way with a child in this place. I could also smell the Christmas in the air. Yeah that's right, Christmas is in the air.

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Coming from a typical Nigerian home, a number of things can characterise one's personal feeling of Christmas around the corner or not. For a child, the first and most important factor that puffs his or her feeling about Christmas around the corner is the arrival of Christmas clothe. While this is meant to ease their concerns and set them excited towards Christmas by meeting this their crucial need, ironically it gives the child restlessness. The child feels as though the Christmas day is dragging its feet because all he or she wants is to wear those new clothes. Childhood days remind me of times when I would try mine more than several times before the Christmas day, and also taking a look at it maybe twice or more in a single day. Our curiosity turned to desperation. That’s it for a child.

To an adult who fancies not the idea of having new clothes for Christmas, other factors count to define his or her feeling about the arrival or Christmas. Assuringly, for such a person it is the sound of oil on fire and the dancing of "chin chin" and meat in it that announces to their feeling that Christmas is here.

This year I find myself lost away from the thought of Christmas; not the reason for the season but the celebration of the season. Maybe it's because I had stuffs on my mind that I was just trying to address and sort out. Also, maybe because of the ceremonial events around this period that got me engrossed. Whatever be the case, I was lost from Christmas celebration. Well, that was before today.

So we planned on making "chin chin" today. Okay, so chin chin is this common and prominent Christmas special that you make by mixing ingredients such as butter or margarine, eggs, milk, sugar, baking powder and pouring into flour.

Ingredients mixed

This mixture is then thoroughly mixed to make the raw chin chin that will then be fried. It's not an easy job trust me, especially when you have to do it in large quantity.

The ingredients poured into the flour

From the lump mixed, a measure is cut off, spread on a table to make it nearly flat which is then cut into long parts. These long parts are then cut into shorter ones.

Lump spread and cut into long parts

It's a lot of work I tell you. Coming from an all-boys family, we knew we don't have a lady in the house to help do this except for our mom, so we knew we had to take care of business even though this was much of a female's job. I took charge of the chin chin job and boy, did I do well.

Now cut into smaller parts

After the cutting and all, the chin chin is then proceeded to the fire for the frying. This was when Christmas occured to me that it was really around the corner. The smell of the chin chin permeating the air brought me to a strong remembrance that Christmas is here. Oh yes it is. So then, I gladly took care of the frying and it was nice.

The frying work

And I have my chin chin

Well, Christmas is less than two days. Hope you have not forgotten - haha. Remember, Christ is the reason for the season. Merry Christmas in advance!

Pardon my pictures, my phone is not nice enough - chuckles.