Norwich -- It’s often said, Aaron Lester Daniels told a group of a dozen people in the basement of the United Congregational Church on Broadway Sunday morning, that Kwanzaa and other holidays are “a made up thing.”

“This is just one of those,” he said, “but don’t let it bother you.”

A mostly white group gathered in the meeting space of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Norwich to celebrate the second day of the pan-African and African-American holiday.

They beat drums in a rhythmic circle, danced, wore dashikis, lit the candles of the Kinara and ate together while they reflected on the end of the year.

“Habari Gani?” Daniels boomed as the meal began, saying the Swahili phrase for “what’s the news?”

There was silence until he reminded them that “Kujichagulia,” the Kwanzaa principle of self-determination reserved for the second day of the weeklong holiday, was the proper response.

This will be the only time the congregation, which has about a dozen people, will celebrate Kwanzaa together this year. But the Norwich Unitarian-Universalists have been gathering to celebrate the holiday for more than 20 years, Daniels said.

This year, the sermon schedule placed Sidat Balgobin, a retired reverend who occasionally speaks to the Unitarian congregation, at the front of the room for the Sunday sermon.

Balgobin said he knew little about Kwanzaa, and was at first hesitant to speak about self-determination because he felt that the intention of the principle was to allow African-Americans to speak for themselves.

“I’m not an African man,” he remembered saying to Daniels when he was asked to give Sunday’s sermon. “Do you really want me speaking?”

But Daniels insisted. As Balgobin continued to research Kwanzaa, which was established by a professor named Maulana Karenga in 1966 to encourage unity among black Americans, he found that there were ideas in the holiday that could apply to everyone.

“Something that the holidays share is where is our commonality as human beings?” Balgobin said. He drew on lessons from Judaism, Christianity and the teachings of people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. in his sermon.

“That is the beauty of the Unitarian-Universalist church,” Daniels said. “We go out and we find these things that we can celebrate, that have spiritual significance to somebody in our midst.”

m.shanahan@theday.com

Twitter: @martha_shan