It is all about the months of the year:
30 days hath September, April June and November. All the rest have 31 excepting February alone which has 28 days clear and 29 in each leap year.
We celebrated Christmas twice in Ethiopia.
The main one was December 25th, but we also celebrated Ethiopian Christmas which was on January 5th or 6th (depending on if it was a Leap Year or not)
December 25th was celebrated with stockings filled with the usual Father Christmas presents of oranges (but no apples) so we usually got 2 oranges per waiting stockings (I can remember that one Christmas I found out that Father Christmas was my dad (I can still remember the colour of his dressing gown). The rest of the day was filled with Christmas lunch and food (no turkey but a large partridge, chicken, or wild duck.) We made our own cake and pudding. The cake was decorated with icing sugar, branches and trees to which we tried to attach candles to, and holly leaves all made out of coloured cardboard or icing sugar. We could not go to church as the nearest was 30 miles away in Addis Ababa. So, unless a visiting priest was with us the Christmas service was read out to us by my father (Daniel Arthur Sandford) but we had no communion service. So we sang lots of Christmas hymns and carols, played on the piano by Christine my mother.
We also had dried fruit like raisins which we put in a soup bowl and poured warm brandy over them and then set it alight and tried to get the dried fruit out with much excitement but no burnt fingers as the flames did not last for long. I think we tried to be the person who got the most dried fruit out (perhaps because we rather liked the taste of the brandy). We still do this every Christmas in Hemyock if we have enough children with us. The Christmas cake recipe is still the one I used to make over 50 years ago.
Gena was the Amharic name for Christmas in Ethiopia. It was not a large festival as our Christmas was and they had no Father Christmas.
However, it was celebrated on horseback with a ball made of bits of ragged material. Then horses and riders would be split into two groups, the rag ball would be thrown onto the field in front of the players and they would charge off (on their horses) trying to hit the rag ball with 6ft long sticks and the winners would be the team who got the rag ball to the end of the playing area first. It was very exciting. I seem to remember that Stephen and I tried to join in but we were far too slow getting up the field chasing the ball – but it was great fun trying to do so.
Their Gena was celebrated on January 7th.
ETHIOPIAN NEW YEAR
Ethiopia follows a 13-month calendar like that used by many Eastern Orthodox Churches trailing the Western calendar by 7 years and 8 months. On the Gregorian calendar, the Ethiopian New Year falls on September 11th.
Legend has it that King Solomon gave the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba, jewels during a state visit over 3,000 years ago.
Upon her return at the end of a dry summer season, yellow flowers began to bloom in the foothills surrounding Addis Abeba, signifying the end of a long period of dry weather and the start of a rainy season which would enable wildflowers to grow, and enable farmers to plant crops and a start of being able to grow food items for everyone to harvest and store for eating and feeding their children.
In September, the number of daylight and nightlight are the same. Another reason for September or Maskaram being considered spiritual in the eyes of early Ethiopian Christians.
I have written about the feast of Maskal and all the bonfires being lit to commemorate the finding of a piece of the cross that our Lord Jesus was crucified on.