Former government minister and senator Terry Lister is releasing a new edition of a book he wrote on the holiday season in Africa. He penned Peace, Joy and Love. Christmas Across Africa in 2022, but because of some generational shifts he has seen, decided to add to it. Mr Lister is the author of six books about travelling across the continent. He started visiting in 2014 as part of a life goal to visit 100 countries. He finished the challenge in 2023, after some delays owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Along the way he became fascinated with the way various African countries celebrated Christmas.

“As I was looking at it going across the continent, it reminded me of Christmas when I was small,” he recalled.

Growing up, he attended the White Hill Gospel Chapel in Sandys.

“We got up and went to church on Christmas Eve,” he said. “We went again on Christmas Day, although not all day. We would go long enough and then come home and celebrate.”

New Year’s Eve, too, meant going to church. He found that Christmas was a time of great joy in many places.

“People who have left the village and live in the city go back to the village at Christmas,” he said. “People who have gone overseas and have not been back for a while, try to come back at that time. It is a wonderful, spiritual time”

On top of that many people choose to get married at this time because all the family are already gathered together.

During his travels he noted that Christmas was different in different parts of Africa. He found that in Senegal and Gambia, Muslims and Christians tend to celebrate each other’s holidays.

“If Muslims are off for a religious holiday, everyone is off,” he said. “If Christians are off, everyone is off. If you go to Dakar at Christmas time, you’ll see trees lined up just like the outside of our grocery stores, and people are buying these trees and taking them home, including some Muslims.”

The people selling them are often dressed in Santa suits despite the temperature which often hovers around 80F.

On the flip side, in places such as Mauritania and Tunisia, Christmas is not celebrated in any open way due to a more restrictive government.

However, in cities with an influx of tourists from the West such as Casablanca and Rabat in Morocco, you often see huge Christmas trees outside of the hotels, or inside.

He initially wrote the book when he noticed a gap in the literature.

“I could only find a handful of books on the topic written in the Thirties and onward,” he said. “That was the real drive for me to do it and try to do it well.”

In more recent years though, he has found that the younger generation living in the city in some African countries are not going back to their villages at Christmas as much as they once did.

“This is the main change that I have seen,” he said. “In some of the countries, what we are seeing is a little step towards what we do in the West. The second generation now is saying, ‘I don’t know those people in the village’. They are staying in the city at Christmas. Whereas Christmas in the city used to be quiet, today it is busy with young people running around and having a good time.”

One lesson he took from his research was that the meaning of Christmas need not depend on the size of the celebration or the number of presents beneath a tree.

“Being poor does not mean you can’t enjoy Christmas,” he said.

This new version of the book will be available next month at Brown & Co in Hamilton.

In the meantime, Mr Lister has moved on to exploring countries in Asia.

“I have been moving between places rather than focusing on just one area,” he said. “I started with Nepal and Bhutan. Then I went across into Malaysia, Borneo and down into Indonesia.”

He also mentioned being in Bali and trying, unsuccessfully, to get to Komodo Island to see the Komodo dragons, a large and toothy endangered reptile species.

Komodo Island is located in the Lesser Sunda chain of Indonesia, situated in the Sape Strait between the islands of Sumbawa to the west and Flores to the east.

He was unable to see them due to restrictions the Indonesian Government has put on the number of people who are able to visit the lizard’s habitat, in an effort to slow down ecosystem degradation.

Mr Lister confessed that he has not written anything new since Covid-19, though he has plenty of notes and material for more books.

“I could produce probably about four more Africa books,” he said.