{"id":113992,"date":"2022-06-25T17:59:31","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T21:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=113992"},"modified":"2022-06-26T16:39:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T20:39:55","slug":"ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/ho\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas at Grandma’s (Hour 9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I sit with legs spread wide<\/p>\n

a piece of chicken in one hand<\/p>\n

a spoon to shove rice and stew into my mouth in the other<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the Christmases in my lifetime<\/p>\n

none comes close to the ones spent with grandma in the ancient city of Benin<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Christmas stew always hits different<\/p>\n

curry powder is replaced with fresh curry leaves for better flavour<\/p>\n

chicken spices are thrown out, many cocks go to the slaughter before dawn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a season of joy<\/p>\n

every room fills up with voices that sat on the other ends of phones all year long<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not missing the bustle and noise that comes with Lagos life<\/p>\n

we awaken on Christmas morning to grandma’s humming and dancing<\/p>\n

we hum along to the rhythm<\/p>\n

pausing to steal a piece of chicken or two from the kitchen<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the cake sits at the top of a fridge<\/p>\n

too far for the children to reach<\/p>\n

it is to be consumed under supervision by an adult<\/p>\n

or all of them<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

when we tire out of playing around the kitchen we go for the fridge<\/p>\n

hoisting one another up in turns to take chin-chin and skim icing off the cake<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By afternoon we have the house upside down<\/p>\n

no corner is pitied in our hide and seek game<\/p>\n

Grandma shoos us to bed<\/p>\n

and under duvets we plan our next adventure outside the door of the room<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Evening brings another feast<\/p>\n

ice cream flows and sauced chicken is served on plates with salads<\/p>\n

we cry for the Christmas rice and stew<\/p>\n

it is gone and would only return the year after<\/p>\n

that gives us another reason to look forward to the next Christmas at Grandma’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sit with legs spread wide a piece of chicken in one hand a spoon to shove rice and stew into my mouth in the other   All the Christmases in my lifetime none comes close to the ones spent with grandma in the ancient…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,441,5],"tags":[5206,5209,5207,2376],"class_list":["post-113992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts","tag-2022hour9","tag-2022hour9snowprompt","tag-2022prompt9","tag-hour9"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113992"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123535,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113992\/revisions\/123535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}