On Friday, the music was blaring from one of those handcarts offering CD’s for sale. The vendor had parked the contraption in the north eastern area of Regent and King streets and was offering what was a popular and in the circumstances, poignant Destiny’s Child’s ever popular Christmas tune… “Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?” Two policemen on foot had stopped close by and appeared to be readying themselves to urge him to ‘move on.’ However, somehow, it seemed that they sensed that, in the circumstances, the tune was making just the right kind of statement. This was Christmas and people simply have to find a way to put behind them the scourge of the pandemic. They opted to leave him on the corner. “Doesn’t it feel like Christmas?” … one of the more ‘catchy’ of the contemporary Christmas tunes, seemed altogether appropriate in the circumstances. It was as if it was seeking to infuse the ‘Christmas Spirit’ into people who were yet to make up their minds regarding the answer to that question. The atmosphere underscored the impact that the single most serious health-related malady of our time has created. In more ways than one, the coronavirus has been a turning point in our existence. It has closed schools, brought business to a shuddering halt, created a sense of paranoia about hygiene and sanitation, and compelled changes in myriad other ways. Christmas, however, is likely to be the acid test of the extent to which COVID-19 has dislocated our usual pattern of behaviour.
