It started last month with Christmas music playing on radio stations, but the 2022 Christmas season officially kicked off with the launch of the popular Nine Mornings festival last Sunday evening in the temporarily renamed Christmas Village on the Square. Heritage.
Although given the sobriquet “Nine Mornings”, in fact the celebrations are much more comprehensive, not only centered in the capital Kingstown, but spreading to rural communities, lighting up businesses, homes and entire villages, all of which maintenance and construction. Vincy Christmas traditions.
The unique nature of the Nine Mornings festival helps to further enhance the value of the entire Christmas season making the Vincentian experience truly one of a kind. Over the years, the nature of Nine Mornings has evolved, but the organizers have valiantly tried to maintain the essence while adding variety and creativity.
Even after all these years, Nine Mornings still attracts Vincentians living overseas to their home base, along with visitors as well. This ‘back to basics’ is itself a tradition started largely by the Trinidad-based Vincies during the sixties and seventies. Subsequently, prominent among the “returnees” were the “boys from the Regiment”, Vincentian servicemen in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment who had previously served in the Jamaica-based West Indies Regiment raised as part of the Federation evil of the West Indians. .
With the exodus of many young Vincentians to the US in the seventies, the predominantly New York-based Vincies led the way in the seventies, continuing the tradition established by the T&T contingent a decade earlier. It was another affirmation of strong cultural ties to the homeland, as well as a recognition of the cultural and social value of not only Nine Mornings but also Vincy Christmas. There could be no richer appetizer for Vincentian Christmas than the Nine Breakfasts.
After a comeback of sorts, the Festival has been revived, going from strength to strength. Moreover, the economic potential of the Festival is being recognized although the potential is so great that we are still scratching the surface. Tourism officials here and people in the tourism industry have a challenge to begin to unlock and develop the obvious potential as a foreign exchange earner.
For all these reasons, it is important that the net of participation is spread as wide as possible. Most importantly, our business firms must play a greater role, both large city-based businesses and the many enterprises in rural communities. It can only benefit everyone.
