Kolkata Celebrated Christmas With Festivity

Kolkata remained wide-awake since Monday
night, with its famous shops and fine
dining restaurants decorated with
Christmas trees, models of Santa Claus,
colourful ribbons and lights.
Baking cakes from good bakeries is
another tradition among the Christians
over here.
Most of the city hotels and restaurants
have included in their menu sumptuous
turkey dishes and delicious cakes, while
the iconic bakeries like Nahoum's and the
famed tearoom Flury's too have lined up
a wide variety of their wares.
People visited their relatives, exchanged
greetings and gifts, while children and
youngsters organised picnics and
community feasts.

Amid tight security, Kolkata
put on its Christmas robe
Tuesday to celebrate the
birth of Jesus Christ with
midnight masses, cakes,
cookies, candles and
carols.
The celebrations embraced
both Christians and non-
Christians, with the winter
chill adding to the
merriment and a spirit of
wanderlust that saw huge
footfalls at the tourism hot
spots like the city zoo,
Victoria Memorial Hall and
the Indian Museum.
At the stroke of the
midnight hour (Monday-
Tuesday), St. Pauls
Cathedral in Kolkata and
other churches across the
state - decked up with
colourful festoons, paper
stars, streamers, Christmas
trees, twinkling lights - drew
huge crowds cutting across
religious lines.
Daylong prayers were held
in all the churches since
midnight on ChristmasEve.
Mother House - the global headquarters
of Missionaries of Charity (MoC) founded
by Mother Teresa - welcomed hundreds of
visitors, who started pouring in since
morning.
The city's famous heritage address - Bow
Barracks, inhabited by Christians and
Anglo-Indians - bustled with activity and
the aroma of home-brewed wines and
cakes, songs and dances, as children and
the aged revelled in festivities, which had
started well ahead of Christmas.
Carnivals and music festivals, football
and hockey tournaments and unions of
the families with their loved ones, who
have travelled miles to be here for the
occasion, made it the best of times at the
brightly lit row of red brick buildings that
is the Bow Barrack.

A. B.

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