Dec. 24, 2008 – It's the day before Christmas, and Glen "Kwabena" Davis is urging
all carolers to be nice, not naughty, and get to Emancipation Garden by 5:45 a.m. Thursday morning to herald in Christmas with the live broadcasts on WTJX Television and WSTA radio.
The Challenge of the Carols traditionally harkens Christmas morning as day breaks, winding up a night of caroling to homes around the island, as the carolers pour into the Garden, their voices bringing the spirit of Christmas.
Davis, traditional Christmas bearer and leader of the popular Voices of Love, is one who keeps the voices alive. "The old-time tradition was fading during the late 1930s and during the war," he says, "but in the in mid 1970s Vernon Finch, Dorothy Elskoe and I brought the event back to life."
This year will see the addition of the Moravian Church Gospel Choir, along with the traditional Voices of Love, Bethel Baptist Church Choir, Party Hardy Carolieres, Hapless Hopeless Caroliers, Salvation Army Songsters and Torch Bearers, the New School of Music, Clarence Husband, and, of course, Richard "Mousie" Howard and perhaps, a few more.
The morning is a gathering of the community embraced by song as friends greet each other under the garden's gracious trees, while enjoying sweet bread, ham, dumb bread and cheese and washed down with steaming hot bush tea, a treat this time of year in the chilly mornings. The welcome repast – Father Christmas Corner – is provided to all by former Sen. Stephen "Smokey" Frett and the Alvin and Edwin Davis families.
