Many of us will spend this week in a frantic rush in and out of stores looking for presents, racing to get the last can of candied yams off the supermarket shelf.Melody Micere Van Putten is taking a calmer approach to the holiday season.For the past 30 years the author and educator has celebrated Kwanzaa, an African and Pan-African holiday observed by millions across the world.From December to 26 to New Year’s Day, it’s a time of reflection and unity for practitioners. It features the lighting of a candle holder three red candles represent the blood and the struggle of black cultures, three green candles represent hope and land and one black candle is in honour of the people.Kwanzaa typically involves creative and cultural activities, such as visits to a museum or art gallery. It ends with a large feast and gift giving.Mrs Van Putten said it wasn’t a holiday to replace spiritual holidays like Christmas or Hanukkah. She says she still enjoys holiday carols, food staples like pumpkin pie and decorating trees at this time of year.“It’s not in conflict with any other holiday. It’s not a religious holiday; it’s a cultural holiday. It’s not ‘black’ Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas you still celebrate Christmas.“There’s this perception if you celebrate Kwanzaa you do not celebrate Christmas, but Christmas is spiritual and religious.”Africologist Mrs Van Putten first learned of the practice of Kwanzaa while in college in the United States.She said it was a time when she was discovering who she was, but also a period when she noticed her primary-school aged son was not getting educated on the history and culture of Africa.“He was also experiencing racism, even though we were in the US and [there was] the so-called progressiveness in the North versus the South. That became the impetus for me for teaching him the history [of Pan African culture] that I knew.”Growing up in the 1960s, she said she was exposed to the teachings of activists like Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, but only quenched her own thirst for knowledge of black history while studying at Temple University.Her professor Maulana Karenga, the holiday’s founder, taught her about Kwanzaa. He had long studied African cultures to find out what values they held most dear and relied on to strengthen the community.Dr Karenga came up with Kwanzaa derived from the Swahili phrase ‘matunda ya kwanza’ meaning fruits of the harvest in 1966. The goal was to give people an alternative to the existing holidays practised by the dominant society.However Mrs Van Putten stressed that it was not just a holiday, but a “way of living” that allowed black people to connect with themselves “after being so brutally disconnected through the slavery experience”.Kwanzaa involves principles like unity, self-determination, co-operative economics, creativity, purpose, collective work and responsibility and faith. These and other values provide a foundation for living and create a positive legacy for children and the larger community, said Mrs Van Putten.“It’s really very serious, it’s not about gift giving,” she added.Each day of the weeklong holiday allows practitioners to discuss a certain one of the principles with family or friends and often times they have activities planned around those values.“Every day it’s about, ‘how do I use those values and set goals that honour those?’ There is a feast on the last day, usually a community pot luck. You have gifts that would be given, [that are] either educational or culturally-based, like books or art work that is handmade.“It’s not about going out and buying things, it’s about understanding those values.”She said it was also important to buy from within the community you live another aspect of co-operative economics. But she said the main focus of the holiday was teaching children and cultivating pride.There is also an element of reflection, as family and friends gather to honour their loved ones who died in the past year or historic figures who have impacted or inspired them in some way.She said the celebration was both empowering and uplifting.“Just like Christmas, Kwanzaa is about togetherness, wholesome family openness and discussion and having the opportunity to talk about ‘how do I live these principles?’“I also do meditation around these values, asking people to consider each value and how they live it and whether they will pledge to live it in the next 365 days.”Mrs Van Putten tries to pass on such values to people throughout the Island.“To [get people to] understand themselves from a cultural, historical and spiritual prism is what Kwanzaa is about,” she said.