I was born into a poor , abusive Ghanaian family.
My name is Ama Serwaa,I have three siblings.
Our father is a carpenter ,and Mother is a petty trader.
Father used the little money he earned from his jobs to drink ,and assault Mother and us at the least provocation.
Mother did her best to provide for us with the meagre earnings from her trade.
We never enjoyed little things that other children did like birthday parties.
But Mother did her best to always celebrate Christmas in our house.
It was the only day through the year we were allowed to wear our beautiful dresses,the only dresses that hang in our wardrobes,and our white socks and black shoes.
Being a yearly ritual ,we outgrew the dresses and the shoes.
We were still forced to wear them or no Christmas for us.
Christmas,was the only time we ate gem biscuits and have a sip of mineral(fanta or muscatella),which was poured into four little plastic cups for us by mother.
We always enjoyed our chicken stew with rice or Jollof rice.
The good part of the chicken was given to Father ,and the neck ,back and legs were given to us.
Though what we enjoyed at Christmas was very small amount ,we were grateful and prayed for Christmas to come early.
This year Christmas came slowly ,but eventually ,it was Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve night was very quiet and we could hear the dogs bark ,and we heard Father open the front door and entered the house from one of his drinking sprees.
He started calling Mother for his supper.
Then there was silence.As if in a dream ,I heard Mother shouting my name , saying Father will kill her .
I rushed into their room and found her in a pool of her blood ,and broken bottle scattered on the floor
Apparently,Father came home with a bottle of beer ,and smashed it on Mother s head.He was lying beside her in a drunken state.
I yelled to my siblings to assist me take her to a nearby clinic.We stayed with Mother who was unconscious ,but stable ,till daybreak.
In the morning ,we heard church bells,and saw children in their best clothes happily going to Christmas church service.
We heard Christmas carols being sang in the nearby churches,then it dawned on us that it was Christmas morning ,the day we have waited patiently for through the year.
We couldn't hold our tears,we wept uncontrollable
"Christmas just passed us by "