How Merry was your 2023 Christmas and how resolute are your New Year (2024) Resolutions?

In my childhood, we celebrated Christmas in very meek but joyous ways. We built our Christmas hamlets or huts mostly with palm branches and decorated them with plentiful of beautiful flowers nature itself availed to us in that Lukunu village of my father within the Mepe Traditional Area. Fresh palm wine was equally plentiful for the yuletide celebrations.

Contemporarily, most of the plants bearing the beautiful flowers for us at the time are either extinct or reduced to stunted growth due to chemical (weedicide) farming today. Our locally made knockouts /fireworks and empty milo- tin drums respectively provided more joyous cacophonies and melodies that euphorically entertained body and soul. Christmas was real fun.

It was in the 1980s. Despite the economic depression coupled with droughts and famine in Ghana in 1983 which cascaded into 1984, our parents still managed to provide for the family. In that era, most of our basic needs could be acquired in-country and we cherished our locally produced food such as yam, cassava, rice, wheat etc. Now, we have developed a sharp taste for foreign products. It is no longer rice if it is not a perfumed rice. We do not care if it comes with side effects. The only quality is that the rice must smell aromatically good and the grains must be wholesome in the cooking pot. A Twi speaking person would say, rice nu eyi baako baako, if I get it right. In the 1980s, we celebrated Christmas with local chicken from our extensive or semi-intensive system of keeping those birds. In contemporary times, we celebrate Christmas with chemical-laced chicken from numerous “chicken mortuaries” called cold stores. Times have really changed. I can go on with these lamentations for days like Afua Asantewaa’s Sing-a-Thon Challenge but let me end it here since our 1950, 1960, 1970 forebears who are still alive may have better Christmas stories than mine to tell.

2023 Christmas, how merry was yours?
Currently, times are hard in Ghana. There is economic hardship which has greatly affected various spectrums of life. It is that bad to the extent that many of our Nurses, Midwives and other cherished clinical brains are running for better jobs in other jurisdictions. Even that, those medics and paramedics who have resolved to remain in Ghana and serve Ghanaians are still not being treated well. They receive meagre salaries with minimal and fragmented conditions of service.

Inflation rates are well above containable thresholds, making the ordinary Ghanaian impoverished and hungry. Plenty money is used to chase fewer goods. Price hikes for basic commodities are frequent such that one cannot make reliable personal budgets. The political class especially the current administration has largely failed the masses. Aside that, it is more heartbreaking that some of those self-serving politicians have stashed huge sums of money in Ghana Cedis and in American Dollars at home either in a hole, in a polytank or in some obscure corner. Some of those matters are before the courts. For the fear of committing contempt of court due to the possible breach of the sub judice rule, therefore, I will abstain from delving into such details. Basically, the sub judice rule prohibits the publication of statements which may prejudice court proceedings. It means the matter is “under judicial consideration or before the court for determination” hence it must not be discussed to predict the courts’ determination.

With the economic hardship, high inflation rates, high unemployment rates, meagre salaries, insensitive political leadership, IMF dictates, your own taste for perfumed rice and other foreign products, how merry was your Christmas last month? Was the merry only on your lips or you were able to pamper your soul and physical body a bit? Whatever the case may be, hope lies within life itself so we pray that this new year, 2024 will bring some turnarounds in your personal life.

History of New Year Resolutions
A New Year's resolution is an age long tradition in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired trait or behavior, accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve his or her behaviour at the beginning of a calendar year.

It is on record that in the Second Millennium BC thereabout, Babylonians celebrated the new year in March and not in January as we have it currently under the Gregorian Calendar. March was the Babylonian farming season and their spring festival called Akitu was celebrated joyously over 12 days. The festivities encompassed religious observances centred around the god Marduk with rituals and communal feasting. The Babylonian god Marduk was tantamount to the Roman god called Jupiter. As part of the Akitu celebrations, the Babylonians recited various poems to the Marduk deity and made myriad of resolutions. They usually expected the Marduk deity to bless them realize the resolutions. They promised to work hard, be of good conduct, pay their debts and in return, Marduk must make the new year favourable to them.

The ancient Romans also celebrated the new year in March but their leader, Julius Caesar changed the new year celebrations to 1^st January, linking it to the two-faced Roman god of Janus whose two faces looked backward and forward. Janus was revered as the perfect deity of transitioning from the old to the new year. Somewhat paradoxically, Caesar would be assassinated by Brutus and other assassins in two years later on what would previously have been the New Year’s Day (the Ides or 15^th of March).

Regardless of its falling in January or March, new year was a time for positive intentions for ancient Romans during which there were family gatherings and exchange of gifts. They expressed hope for positivity and improvement in every beneficial aspect of life.

Although Caesar had ushered in January 1 as the New Year’s Day, this was not widely adopted until the rise of Christianity which marks the start of the new year with various religious activities and feasts.

So whatever you have considered for this new year called 2024, be reminded that our forebears had made similar promises/pledges and went through similar economic and other struggles to fulfil or to attempt to fulfil those new year resolutions.

How resolute are your new year (2024) resolutions?

Having talked about the modesty and joy of Christmas in the 1980s especially in my Lukunu village of Mepe under the tutelage of Torgbe Dedzi Ngorgbier Korto and Aƒenor Yawa Azidetsi Katamani, having touched on what nature itself offered us for Christmas in that era, having asked you about how merry your 2023 Christmas was amidst the harsh economic conditions in Ghana and having told you a bit of the history of new year resolutions, it has become logically imperative to find out how resolute your 2024 new year resolutions are. Are your new year resolutions linked to the annual prophecies of your clergy most of which do not come to pass?

Most often than not, we are carried away by the euphoria surrounding the 31^st December night religious observances and we pray and make resolutions that vanish in few days. Most people make the resolutions that they deviate from even before January ends. These are the flare of the moment resolutions that become nothing but a mirage. The resolution maker, therefore, becomes an old wine placed in a new bottle. Nothing changes until another new year steadily approaches.

Whereas some resolutions lack solid foundations relevant to their attainment, some resolutions are not achieved due to the incessant economic hardships and bad leadership. After all, John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership” while Steve Adei says, “Leadership is cause, everything else is effect”. Ideally, the resolutions are meant to bring some transformations in the lives of the individual makers of the resolutions. However, some factors germane to resolution attainment are beyond the control of the individual hence the ancient Babylonian, the ancient Roman and the contemporary Ghanaian would seek for supernatural interventions from God and the deities to achieve such onerous resolutions. Regardless, the individual needs to be committed to the resolutions he or she makes whether it is for an ensuing or an existing year. The resolutions are also subject to review in the course of the year mindful of the various trajectories of life.

My Prayer Support for your 2024 Resolutions?

I may not know what your 2024 resolutions are but I hope they are not resolutions that are harmful to yourself, others around you and society at large. For those good intentions of yours, I pray fervently that God (Mawu, Nyame, Chineke, Allah, Mungu or whatever you call Him) will make those resolutions a reality in your lifetime this year. May God guide you through every thick and thin that may unfold in 2024 and may you sustain a discerning spirit that leads to the most beneficial choices that impact lives positively. I wish you good health above all because good health and strength are the fulcrums of lifetime achievements. May God watch over your resolutions till they become a fruitful reality. May your victories be plentiful this year and may you improve largely. May you embrace any failure with hope and the determination to make things better in line with these your resolutions. Be at peace with yourself and with your community. Be blessed and protected by the Lord God Almighty. May your next Christmas be merrier and may this guide you into making more apt and achievable resolutions in many new years to come Amen. ~Asante Sana~

Philip Afeti Korto
Hospital Administrator
[email protected]