Christmas is the most anticipated and celebrated holiday in the world, across every divide in the social dynamics of humankind.In Guyana, even the poorest of homes is cleaned and decorated and the best food prepared for that special day. Many Guyanese domiciled abroad save all year long and make sacrifices so that they can return home to enjoy with family and friends that holiday with its flavours and ambience peculiar only to their homeland.

Bonuses are spent on shopping sprees for gifts, foodstuff and decorations. Housewives clean, cook and bake, and children eagerly await Christmas morning to discover whether Santa had left the toys on their wish list under the Christmas Tree, or in the oversized stocking by the door.
Grandparents who realise that their time on earth is fast coming to an end look forward to a special day spent surrounded by all their family members, or as many as can make the journey home.
Then the madness begins. And the joy, peace and anticipation are shattered with the blast of someone’s stereo system turned to the highest volume. One family decide their enjoyment comes before that of anyone else’s in an entire community.
Families who long scrimped and saved to have that special holiday shared with loved ones cannot have a conversation, because their voices are drowned. Favourite Christmas-time movies, such as the Home Alone series, Dennis the Menace, Jingle Bells, and others have to be abandoned because the television cannot be heard above the mainly lewd, embarrassingly vulgar cacophony emanating from the large boxes strategically placed for the greatest projection of the noise.
Decent families are shamed because of the explicit lyrics describing the various sexual encounters between deviants; and grandparents despair at the direction of the young generation who are subjected to such indecencies as a normal, even on such a Holy day as the Lord’s birthday.
One grandmother who lives in the Eccles neighbourhood had to send her grandchildren away because the deafening noise from next door assailing their homemade conversation, and pretty much every activity, impossible and pointless; plus the dirty lyrics were inappropriate for the sensibilities of teenage boys enjoying a special day with their grandmother.
Attempts to elicit help from the Providence Police Station was pointless because the grandmother tried to get relief from the deafening, vulgar noise from the Police at that Station throughout the day until late in the night, without success, despite many promises.
And calling 911 is an exercise in futility, because no one ever answers that police emergency number.
The grandmother had to flee her home late in the night after she developed a migraine attack.
The unsuccessful calls for help from police for noise nuisance that impairs the health, affects students’ studying for exams, and destroys the quality of life of victims in a multiplicity of ways have resounded in Guyana’s social milieu for decades without surcease, despite many promises from relevant authorities at various times to adopt ‘zero tolerance’ for this social anathema that has caused severe angst in peaceful, law-abiding families and communities, while the victims are treated like nuisances attempting to curtail the enjoyment of the culprits; and there seems to be no end to this scourge, for the police are themselves contributing to the problem. Most of them have emerged from communities where such aberrant behavior is a norm.