NORFOLK, Va. — With Christmas over, many of you may be thinking about celebrating the new year.
But there’s another holiday, Kwanzaa, celebrated December 26-January 1.
“It literally translates to first fruits," said Pure Lagos art gallery owner Sia Alexander.
Pure Lagos is an African art gallery in Norfolk. Alexander and her husband celebrate Kwanzaa.
“This is a magnificent time for families and neighbors and the elders and the children to celebrate each other," Alexander said.
The holiday was created in 1966, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and is secular, which means it’s not associated with any one religion.
Part of celebrating Kwanzaa includes lighting symbolic green, red, and black candles. One candle is lit each day during the week.
“You have three red, three green, and one black candle in the middle. The red candles stand for the blood of black people globally who have suffered throughout the world. The green candles stand for the land where we come from, which is Africa, and all of the lands we’ve been dispersed throughout via enslavement and colonialism. The black candle in the middle stands for freedom.”
Each day is also dedicated to one of seven principles, like unity and self-determination, that are supposed to help guide people to live fulfilling lives.
People come together each day and demonstrate and talk about that day’s principle.
"The principles move in a very wonderful fashion toward greater and greater alignment and understanding," Alexander explained. You start off with unity, which is a simple yet profound concept, but you move across the archetype of human highest knowing and being."
On the final day, hand-made gifts are given to represent a principle the person receiving the gift demonstrated. For example, a child who has been very helpful throughout the year might be given a loom to make cloth for their community.
“Kwanzaa, for me, is such a beautiful expression of practical creativity," Alexander's husband, Chike Joseph Nwagbogu said.
Nwagbogu is from Lagos, Nigeria. Celebrating Kwanzaa helps him feel at home.
“It takes home away from home and into this neighborhood, this community. I think the human experience, we’re a collection of communities and the more we connect to each others’ communities the more human that experience is," said Nwagbogu. "So yeah, it does make me feel very at home but it also makes me feel more human.”
He believes Kwanzaa will eventually become a global holiday.
“I think, with time, Kwanzaa will be celebrated in China because it has the ability to take that religious ritual out of the four walls of an institution that’s dedicated to just that and bring it to impact in practical lives daily," Nwagbogu said.
A holiday that can be useful even after the holiday itself is over.
A Kwanzaa celebration will be held at the art gallery on Dec. 30.
