Howto: How do bachelors plan to spend their Christmas?

Just as marriage partners plan to spend their Christmas time with each other, some bachelors and spinsters have a different belief in how they are to spend theirs. Sunday Times made a mini survey and found out that many bachelors intend to spend Christmas with their friends well as others plan to stay home throughout this festive season. Daniel Twahirwa, a resident of Kimisagara and a business man believes Christmas is for visiting long and dearly friends since other days of the year are occupied with searching for money and for others, studying. Visiting homes of your friends is better than keeping home sleeping and eating simple snacks since I don’t cook at home, he says. The festive season offers great opportunity for people to treat their friends, relatives and loved ones with great recipes. It is an awesome experience to share gourmet food, Christmas sugar cookies, berry mocha fudge, sour cream potato salad, chocolate brownie cookies, oyster stew, cranberry punch, traditional baked ham, Christmas bread and more with friends. “Having a Merry Christmas with friends, family and loved ones around a table full of delicious foods, drinks and with their hearts full of love, friendship and kindness makes the day more memorable,” he says. He said that a lot fun and entertainment is expected to intrude as the crowd memorizes the past experiences and discussing how they are going spend Christmas evening. Generally, most people during festive season get together in groups of two or four and look out for entertainment in different entertainment centers depending on the choice of leisure they want to enjoy. Bonny Rutazigwa. a resident of Kacyiru and a casual labourer who has relatives in Uganda says that visiting them is the only option he has during this festive season. He said that spending a full year without visiting his people because of the busy schedule assigned by his company, makes his trip to Uganda worth while. “I am too anxious to see my long-time friends and relatives, I am doing every thing as quickly as possible to create room for this holiday,” he says. Having fun in a novel environment and exploring new natural places are some of the factors that make traveling ideal during this festive season though it’s expensive. Spending this festive season again in Kigali city could make me get bored rather than traveling long distances which involve numerous problems most especially during Christmas, Rutazigwa says. Stephen Mugisha a resident of Nyarugenge and a teacher professionally says that though Christmas means recalling and celebrating the birth of Jesus, he intends to spend it alone at home doing some reading. “I have no where to go and the only alternative is to keep home throughout this festive time as people out there have time of joy,” he says. Being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable, and emotionally refreshing if it is under the individuals control, Mugisha adds. He says that cooking as a bachelor has never been a problem and in any case, many restaurants are out there to take care of him and other singles. He says he has been a lone home for a long period of time without any problem, so he does everything for himself and doesn’t see anything special in celebrating Christmas. “Many of my friends have traveled to villages for Christmas but I am staying and will continue to live a normal life, as usual,” Mugisha says. In many cases, lonely people experience a subjective sense of inner emptiness or hollowness, with feelings of separation or isolation from the world. To experience loneliness however can be overwhelmed by an unbearable feeling of separateness at a profound level. This can manifest in feelings of abandonment, rejection, depression, insecurity, anxiety, hopelessness, unworthiness, meaninglessness, and resentment. If these feelings are prolonged, they become debilitating and prevent the affected individual from developing healthy relationships and lifestyles. A bachelor is a man above the age of the majority of people who chose not to get married for usually personal reasons. A man who was formerly married is not a bachelor but rather is a divorcé or a widower in cases where the wife died. The term is sometimes restricted to men who do not have and are not actively seeking a spouse or other personal partner. For example, men who are in a committed relationship with a personal partner to whom they are not married are no longer generally considered bachelors, neither are not considered married - because they arent. Thus, a broad unnamed status has emerged out between the concepts of bachelor and married man. Merry Christmas to all the bachelors in Rwanda and the whole world. Ends