Festive Feature: Sharon Maas

Bookaholic Confessions

Welcome to a very special Festive Feature on my blog, where every day up until Christmas some of my favourite authors will be sharing what they love most about the festive season, including their favourite films, food, music, presents, memories, books…Plus much more!

I’m delighted to be joined by the wonderful Sharon Maas…

Sleighbells under the Sun

By Sharon Maas

My sweetest childhood memories are of Christmas in Guyana. That tingling sense of anticipation! The magic! The sounds, the aroma, the lights, the taste of Christmas! Christmas trees and Christmas cake and lights and Santa in his sleigh and…

Wait a minute… Santa in his sleigh? Why would he need a sleigh in the tropics? In Guyana, 6° north of the Equator? Where was the snow on the rooftops, and the chimneys for him to climb down, and wouldn’t he be sweltering in that thick red suit?

We Guyanese…

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Marc Matthews: Poet, actor, storyteller – By Dr. Dhanpaul Narine

Marc Matthews: Poet, actor, storyteller

By Dr. Dhanpaul Narine

If you ask Marc Matthews where he was born you would get a colorful excursion into the culture of the rural countryside. Marc chuckles as he describes his birth. ‘I was born in Georgetown hospital because I wanted to be near my mother. As soon I was born she wanted to be near her father and her sister up in Buxton. As soon as we got to Buxton my father said he is going to New Amsterdam.

So we all went to Rosignol and the next thing we know we ended up in Fyrish.’ Marc says that he spent the fi rst fi ve years in Buxton and then the family went to Fyrish before moving to Georgetown. Marc recalls that his dad Rev. Pat Matthews and his mom Una Matthews were hard working persons like so many other families.

GCA DECEMBER 2014 ON-LINE MAGAZINE

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Download: GCA DECEMBER 2014 ON-LINE MAGAZINE

IN THIS ISSUE  –  Gail Nunes – December Editor

PAGE 4-5: Happy Kwanzaa       PAGE 6-9: Guyanese Christmas music       PAGE 10-11: Albouystown Masquerade Band       PAGE -12-15:Food & Drinks at Christmas       PAGE 16-19: Feature: Stanley Greaves       PAGE 20-21: Dis Time Nah Lang Time!       PAGE 22: Pansy Browne – Giving Back      PAGE 23-24: DeMendonca Family Giving Back      PAGE 25: : Sugar Foot Joe           PAGE 26-27: Profile: Juliet Emanuel:        PAGE 28: Eileen Cox remembered       PAGE 29: Tribute to Michael Albert     PAGE -30-31: I come from the gutter      PAGE 32-33: The Initiates

DIS TIME NAH LANG TIME! – By T. Eric Matthews

DIS TIME NAH LANG TIME!

By Ted Eric Matthews

Jump in de line and wine yo body in time.

Ah wha fee ‘appen, leh e ‘appen wan time.

Dis time nah lang time!

Remember Goblet Joe, dancing non-stop through Christmas into New Year?  Dis time nah lang time!  Toffie balls, neverdone sweetie, bruk mout, Chinee cake, two-glass Quencha, Correia sweet wine, D’Aguiar Ice House.  Remember dem real bad men? Briga Bobby, Putagee Tunus, Two-batty John, Sotie? What happen to my May Pole, and my May Queen?  D’urban Park Race Course, Bourda Green, Atkinson Field, fish’an bread at Mahaicony station, Mahaica Bridge, Wismar-Rockstone, Itanami haul-over, R.H. Carr, M.V. Malali. 

Guyana politics: Holding back the tide? commentary

Holding back the tide?

December 21, 2014 · By Stabroek News – Editorial

One would have thought that the PPP had done enough damage to itself over the past few months to give it genuine cause for hesitation the next time it was overtaken by the compulsion to inflict self-harm. But no, there it was yet again last week shooting itself twice in the foot with its customary bravado.

The party held forth on two matters, the irony being that in one case it drew attention to an event which otherwise might have slid by, if not quite unremarked, at least without creating all that much of a ripple in its wake. As it was, however, the Office of the President and by extension, Freedom House, afforded Dr Philip Mozart Thomas’s civil society encounter free publicity, and by trying to warn people away from it, probably achieved the opposite result.

Wintry Blues – By Rosaliene Bacchus

Three Worlds One Vision

Rain clouds hover over Downtown Los Angeles – December 2014
Photo Credit: ABC7 Eyewitness News

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the first day of winter. The North Pole will tilt 23.5 degrees away from the Sun, making the Winter Solstice the shortest day or the longest night of the year.

I’ve got the wintry blues. In Southern California, we’ve been getting much needed rain. But the gray, heavily loaded sky crushes my Christmas spirit. The long nights cloak me in gloom. To add to my wintry woes, some bad news has further chilled my Christmas cheer. Such is the ever-changing journey called life. Anxiety can quickly smother our joy.

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New Year’s Resolutions – By Dr Mike Evans – video

You are 10 times more likely to stick with a change made at the New Year. What’s your resolution??

Dr. Mike Evans is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital. 

Christmas Jazz Piano Instrumental Songs Music: 2014 – 3 hrs

3 Hour Christmas Jazz Piano Instrumental Smooth Songs Music: 2014 Holiday Medley Playlist – by JaBig

Youtube comment by Jeanie DeCoster 

Absolutely great mix! I love it! Well done, and I like how each piece melds just perfectly and smoothly into the next. I have used this as my “radio” station while at work and at home while wrapping gifts, etc. It’s so great because it gets me in a jumpy, jazzy, jolly mood (with the occasional slow, moving piece thrown in for variety) without distracting me with lyrics. Anyway, GREAT JOB, JaBig!!! Merry Christmas! – xoxo!!
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Guyanese Online Blog entry #4600

Guyana’s growth performance to be revised downwards

Country’s growth performance to be revised downwards

December 19, 2014 | By KNews | By Leonard Gildarie

– rice, sugar steady shaky GDP as gold unable to reach projections

With just 12 days remaining in the year, and as gold declaration continue its shockingly dismal trend, Government is preparing to revise its growth figures downwards. That is because declaration is unlikely to even reach the 400,000-ounce mark, affecting overall projections set by Government at the beginning of the year.

However, record-breaking rice and an improving sugar have been the saviours, helping to buoy an conomy that is keeling from the fallout, Ministry of Finance officials said on December 18..
Government had targeted 484,562 ounces for 2014. Last year, despite falling prices on the world market, the country recorded 481,000 ounces in declared production by miners.

Christmas Day. Rosignol, Guyana. 1945 – By Vidur

This entry was submitted by one of our readers:  Thanks to Vidur:

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I am pleased to share with you some reflections, with this drawing of a ‘dream’ house –nostalgia mixed with fantasy- in my old village of Rosignol – Berbice River in Guyana in the early 1940s on Christmas day.

Illustration painted by Vidur

  Christmas Day. Rosignol, Guyana. 1945

Christmas in Guyana, in my young days was the event of the year. In my village of Rosignol, every home was spik and span for Christmas. Everyone must look their best and every household must have Christmas cake and Ginger beer for anyone who called in. Shops and most homes were gaily decorated with buntings. Shops, a couple with their own electric lighting and others with gas lamps brightened the village.