‘It’s Nine Mornings’

Sleepy faces, hooded jackets and road tennis at Heritage Square at 4 in the morning, could only mean one thing.{{more}}

The Nine Mornings festivities have arrived.

The first official day of this country’s Nine Mornings festivities got underway yesterday, shortly after 4 a.m., as persons from all over St Vincent and the Grenadines congregated at Heritage Square before the break of dawn, to witness a tradition which is more than 100 years old.

The programme started with devotions, which were led by the Mt. Sinai Spiritual Baptist Church, and which placed patrons in the right frame of mind for the five-minute period of exercise which followed.

Not only were the adults in on the act to keep fit, but the young ones, although out of sync with the adults, held their own and worked up a sweat.

Eleven-month-old Largo Height resident Tye, was seemingly not fazed by the large turnout, as he and his father, Kishor, belted out the holiday favourite “Jingle Bells” to get the crowd going.

Some of the other activities that had persons erupting in laughter were the cookie face game and another where three men competed for a case of Vitamalt by placing the case of beverages on their backs and crawled back and forth under a table without their stomachs touching the stage.

The day also saw performances by the Fire and Anointing Gospel Band, Sion Hill Euphonium Steel Orchestra, Fusion Dancers and definite crowd favourites — Tally and Elvis — both blind, who gave the audience quite a treat with their lyrics.

Persons were also involved in an Orange Eating competition.

Some of the returning nationals expressed delight in being home for Christmas to experience the festive tradition, while a visiting family from Trinidad, who stated that they they experienced difficulty in getting to SVG this year for Nine Mornings, noted that they always come here every Christmas and their flight troubles were not going to hamper them from experiencing Nine Mornings.

And what would Nine Mornings be without the Bowman brothers, who as usual, gave the crowd great performances on the microphone.

Sharing brief remarks at yesterday’s event, Minister of Culture Cecil “Ces” McKie said that with over 9,000 persons attending the Nine Mornings in 2012, he is expecting over 10,000 to attend this year’s festivities.

On hand also, were two Barbadian journalists who journeyed to SVG to cover the event for Liat’s “In flight” magazine. As a token of appreciation, they were presented with small gifts.

Giveaways compliments Bickles, Subway, the Beauty Shop and Lime among others, were also part of yesterday’s event.

Hosts for the event were chair of the Nine Mornings Committee Michael Peters, Gloria Williams and Jonathan Nichols.

This year’s celebration is being held under the theme: “Celebrating 100 years of a unique Vincentian tradition”.

Nine Mornings will come to a close on December 24. (see more photos at Facebook.com/Searchlight1)