Tamika carefully unwrapped the seven red, black and green candles from their plastic wrappers and slowly pushed each one in place into the kinara.

When every candle was in place, she arranged the kinara and two ears of corn neatly on the beautifully woven straw mat that she and her mother had bought downtown last night. Tamika had waited impatiently for the end of the year to come so that she and her family could celebrate their first Kwanzaa.

"Are you sure about this Kwanzaa thing?" her mom had asked when Tamika first came to her wanting to celebrate Kwanzaa. Tamika had learned about the seven days of Kwanzaa in school, when her class did projects, made posters and wrote papers about the African-American holiday.

"Kwanzaa has a special meaning for black people, it's our holiday" Tamika said. "It has a lot of meaning to it, and I really like the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa.

"Kwanzaa doesn't just mean buying a lot of stuff in a store like other holidays!"

Tamika smiled and formed her pretty brown face into the "Please Mom!" look she knew her mother found hard to resist.

"Please, can we celebrate Kwanzaa this year?" Tamika asked.

Tamika and her mom had gone to several shops and book stores selling African-American products looking for a kinara, the candle holder used in Kwanzaa ceremonies. They found a beautiful one carved from rich, dark wood at the Mombassa Boutique, and Tamika immediately fell in love with it.

Now it was the day before Kwanzaa, and Tamika was busily setting up the kinara on an mkeka, or straw mat. For weeks she had been sharing the meaning of the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa with Mom and her older brother Thomas, and she felt they were ready for their first Kwanzaa celebration.

"Mom, why don't we have a Christmas tree this year?" Tom kept asking over and over again. "All my friends have Christmas trees and decorations like we did last year. They never heard of Kwanzaa!"

Tamika screwed her face into the worst frown a nine year old could make. "Kwanzaa isn't Christmas, it's not the same thing at all!" she said.

Mom smiled at Tom, then glanced at Tamika squirming in her chair at the dining room table.

"Anybody can celebrate Christmas, Tommy" Mom said. But I've been reading the articles Tamika brought home about Kwanzaa and it sounds like a beautiful tradition we can start for our family."

"Give it a chance, Tommy" said Mom. I know this is all new to you, but we're going to try something that will have special meaning for our family this year".

"We're going to celebrate Kwanzaa."

When December 26th arrived, Tamika, Tommy and their Mom were just sitting down to a big Kwanzaa feast when there was a knock on the door. Tamika opened it and broke into a big grin. It was her mother's friend Robert, standing in the hall with his arms full of gifts.

"Your mom told me about your Kwanzaa celebration, and I wanted to see what it's all about" he said.

After dinner all four of them sat around the kinara as Tamika lit the tall black candle in the center, and watched the flame leap to life.

Tamika looked around the table at Mom, then Tom and Robert. "The principle for the first day of Kwanzaa is Umoja!" she said slowly.

"You remember what Umoja means, Tommy?" Mom asked.

"Yeah, sure!" he mumbled. Tom wished he was hooking up the video game Robert just gave him. "Unity . . . Umoja means unity."

"That's right" Tamika grinned. "Umoja stands for unity in the family, in the community, nation and race. That means that we should all come together, like we are now, to work or play or get things done".

"It makes me feel really good when we do things together; like celebrate Kwanzaa!" said Tamika.

When the Kwanzaa ceremony was over, even Tommy had to admit that Kwanzaa "wasn't so bad". He fired up his new video game on the living room TV, and even let Tamika play with it.

Tamika smiled as she thought about the six more days of Kwanzaa yet to come. Each day they would talk about the principles of self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

She knew her family would attend the public Kwanzaa feasts, parties and ceremonies being held in her community. She knew that they would feel closer than they had all year.

And she knew that they were going to have a happy first Kwanzaa!

© 2004 Afrique Publications

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