Nairobi, KENYA: Thousands of Christians flocked to churches on Monday morning during Christmas to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Christmas day that is always celebrated on 25th of every December is also taken as a day of family reunion across all regions after one spending long time out busy with business affairs.
In many cases, the celebrations do not come as easy as one may think; as one has to be loaded with some cool cash and shopping notwithstanding the hard economic times to travel and join their loved ones in the upcountry.
At Machakos Country Bus Station, last-minute travelers were taken advantage of their rush by Matatu operators who doubled the fare for Coast, Western Kenya and Rift Valley regions.
Those traveling to Bungoma for an instance had to pay not less than sh. 2000 up from the norm sh800.
Speaking to Baraka FM, one of the Bus operators heading to Bungoma Mr. Joseph Mukwana said the reason why the price has been hiked almost double above the usual is that the bus is busy while going one way compared to its return which is almost empty.
“We do that because, during the return journey, the bus may be almost empty as few people travel coming to Nairobi this festive season as compared to other seasons where we balance the two ways.” He explained.
As is with many celebrations, food and drinks are the order of the day.
Many families throng at Uhuru Park to celebrate the day with some deciding to do boat riding, horse riding, skating, jumping castle and some only Busked and took selfies for history part of it.
This came as the government gave an assurance of security at venues such as churches, hotels, public resorts, beaches, malls and homes where Kenyans will congregate to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.
In a statement to media houses on Christmas day, Police spokesman George Kinoti asked merrymakers to be vigilant even though the National Police Service has made the necessary arrangements to provide public safety and security to all Kenyans countrywide and in case of any incident, they should report the matter to the nearest police station or police emergency numbers because criminals might take advantage of the festivities to cause trouble.
Even as many Nairobians tend to spend their money to buy fancy staffs for Christmas, many residents took the advantage of it and they made business out of the spending spree of celebrators.
Peter Kinyajui a resident of Kiambu County, is a face painter at Uhuru park in Nairobi who harvested a lot of money from the families that had to paint their kids for celebrations.
“This is our day to harvest because of Chrismas, there are a lot of people that come here to have fun and we spice up their fun by them spicing our pockets. ama Niaje? He lauded.
Kinyajui was not alone in the money making idea as there were several people with several ideas like folding of balloons for the Kids as well as selling of ice creams and Vuvuzela.
Christmas indeed is a therapy for anyone who wants to relax his/her mind from a long year job experience burden.
