Christmas coming: Self-help group members join together to prepare Kuswar
Udupi: With just 10 days left for Christmas, the temple city is gearing up for the arrival of Christmas. The celebrations have begun with cake mixing, carol singing and greetings being exchanged to spread the good cheer associated with the festival.
Preparations are in full swing to erect the Christmas tree and build the crib. Fancy shops are filled with festival-related articles, from dolls of Santa Claus to stars of different colours. Christian youth have also started door-to-door carol singing and exchanging greetings while a large number of youth and other people are gathering at the churches in the evening hours to help in the setting of the Crib.
The Christian community is preparing the Kuswar (special snacks for distributing among relatives and friends) which is the main part of the preparation for this festival. The self-help groups of Sastan have organised a mass Kuswar making programme on Thursday, December 15 at Sastan.
The members of Mother Theresa, Adarsh, Angel and St Antony self-help groups of Sastan joined together and prepared rice ladoos, nevri, kukkisam, karakaddi, checklist etc. They will all exchange the kuswar and greetings of the occasion on the eve of Christmas on 24 December.
Speaking to Mangalorean.com, Jeen Mary Lewis said that Christmas is a time for rejoicing and celebrating but the busy lifestyle does not allow people to meet often. During Christmas people make up for the lost time and come together to celebrate with friends and family. In earlier days members of the family in every home used to get together and prepare kuswar themselves about two weeks before Christmas. But at present most of the Christians depend on bakeries for the kuswar. Children are moving away from the tradition. Hence we women have found it necessary that the kuswar should be prepared at home and Christmas celebrated in the traditional way, she added.
Mabel D’Souza said that the women from the neighborhood have joined hands in preparing Kuswar. All the items prepared are stored and distributed to all on December 24.