<i>When the Christmas spirit beckons with cakes and cookies</i>

Who doesn't respond to the tunes of “Silent night, holy light” and “Rudolf the red nosed reindeer”? Bangladesh, always a friendly place for people of all denominations, celebrates Christmas with due fervour. Eid and Victory Day have just passed by, and New Year is knocking at the door. It's time for chocolates, cakes, cookies, uninhibited laughter and camaraderie with Christmas pies and pot roast.
With music of the carollers in the backdrop and the tapping of the feet to music, people will consume hot chocolate and eggnog with glee. The impact of the British influence cannot be harmful at this juncture, when the season is a globally accepted one -- as far as China and Finland.
Cards and gifts have been exchanged with the Christmas spirit -- of the past, present and future. The home and hearth, with three generations of merry-makers will partake of the fruitcake along with glazed pears and oranges with their inviting white icings.
With the “Ho-ho-ho!” of Christmas cheer, and the tinkling piano in the living room, there is the partaking of meals -- as always before in history at peacetime and even in times of desperation and chaos. Yes, the cyclone has come and gone, but the feeling of joy and contentment of the season is shared. The blessed and fortunate will share their meals with those out in the cold, the less fortunate ones.
Visiting some of the outlets of cakes and pastries, one finds the bakeries ready for the Christmas season at least a week ahead. They even have the requisite multi-coloured balloons, funny caps, buntings and paper whistles Just as the sweet-meat makers were well-equipped for the recent Durga Puja and Eid, so are the bakeries, and just not the five star hotels -- which are winking with their fairy lights and the Christmas fare.
Talking to the employees of outlets like Mr. Baker, Cooper's and King's Confectionery, based in the heart of Dhaka, and examining their displays behind the neat and well-lit show-cases, one sees and learns of the cakes of modest sizes and various shapes that make the mouth water and tempt one to search one's purses for the necessary cost for the young nephews, nieces and friends' and neighbours' children. As if from the pages of Dickens's “Christmas Carol” or Trollope's “Vanity Fare” the plum puddings and gateaux plus other scrumptious pastries beckon one and all. Even the names of the products are so imaginative and lyrical like “Viennese swirls” and “Turkish delights”.
The cake decoration include brown realistic logs with curling icing around them, cheeky reindeer, egret snowmen, complete with carrot noses and eyes, Santa Claus with his bulging bag of goodies, leprechauns with their conical hats and green doublets. Sometimes they even appear like the cake homes of “Hansel and Gretel” from Grimm's fairy tales of yore. The biscuit parcels are cute and tempting too, and they come in both sweet and savoury packs. Father Christmas comes in the form of hard dark chocolate slices.
One doesn't have to be in Europe or the US to feel the Christmas spirit. The Dhaka ambiance at the confectionaries can create the right mood just as well.