This article was published in 2006.
The Christmas tree came to the Middle East in the second half of the nineteenth century; and, although up till then it had played no part in the traditional celebrations of Christ’s nativity in the Arab world, the lovely German-inspired custom of decorating a tree for Christmas was enthusiastically adopted by many of the three million Christians of the area, and by many Moslems as well. To Moslems, Jesus Christ is a revered prophet. Two generations of Christian Arab children have grown up with the Christmas tree, brilliantly decorated with gossamer balls and bells, miniature birds in full plumage, a tinsel star at the top, little fragile angels, a small Santa Claus with jolly red cheeks and a long white beard, with spangles and snow-flakes and real candles which are lit on Christmas Eve. To many children in the Middle East, Christmas has also come to mean Santa Claus (minus the reindeer), gifts piled under the Christmas tree, and stockings hung up at the bottom of the bed in readiness for Santa’s bounty. Basically, however, Christmas continues to be a time for worship and family reunions.
In our family, a typical middle class family of Jerusalem, the excitement would start building up weeks before Christmas, reaching a climax on Christmas Eve, which was the children’s special evening. For weeks, mothers would come home from shopping loaded with parcels and disappear into her bedroom. For almost a month before Christmas, the big cupboard in my parents’ bedroom would be locked. My two brothers and I would go into the bedroom on every pretext, hoping that mother may have forgotten the key in the lock. But she was too clever for us. At times the little attic room would also be locked, and we had visions of bicycles, doll-houses, small cars, little grocery stores with real scales and a cash register, and other desperately desired objects, too large to fit into mother’s cupboard.
Two weeks before Christmas the house was given a thorough cleaning. Necessary renovations were carried out, and rugs, draperies and bedspreads were washed and ironed. This was a bad time for us children for we always managed to be in the way. However we were allowed to help with the Christmas baking. A day was set aside for every house-wife of the family, when all the other women accompanied by their brood of young, would come and help her with her baking. So, for almost a week, we spent each day at a different Aunt’s or Uncle’s home, and one day, of course, at grandmothers. Two special kinds of small cakes, or rather small pastries, are traditionally baked at Christmas time. Semolina, the finest wheat flour, and samneh, (boiled butter with the froth skimmed) are used to make a firm dough, which is stuffed with two kinds of fillings: one filling consists of pressed dates, pitted, ground, and rolled into small circular strips. The other filling is a mixture of walnuts, fine white sugar, and cinnamon. A large quantity of these small cakes have to be baked for, along with Turkish coffee, they served to all visitors who come to offer the family their good wishes at this season, moreover, we children loved them and they kept well for months. It was with the decoration of these pastries that our help was sought. With miniature serrated tongs, we pinched the soft dough to make simple line designs on the cakes. This was a slow business and everyone’s services were impressed, even the men’s when they arrived after work.
A soft glow surrounds these gatherings in my memory. In the center of the living –room, sat the women, surrounding a large pan with the dough in it, two smaller receptacles held the two kinds of fillings, the women fashioned and filled the dough. The men and children competed to produce the most delicate designs with the serrated tongs. In one corner of the living room the large wood stove would crackle and hiss, letting off a wonderful warmth. The late afternoon sun would cast an orange glow upon the family circle. Later the electric lights would come on. Cookies and tea would be passed around and, when the men came, wine and arak. Our parents told stories and jokes, bantered with each other and with us, and reminisced about their childhood. How we delighted in these reminiscences, begging for more: “Please, please Uncle, do tell us again the story of how you lost you brand-new red slippers when you were a boy.”
When the cakes were filled and decorated, they were arranged on very big round brass trays, and one of us children was muffled up warmly– for Jerusalem winters can be very cold– and sent to fetch the baker’s boy, with the enjoinder: “Tell him to come immediately, before the dough becomes too yeasty.” Soon the baker’s boy arrived. The trays were placed carefully– one on top of the other– on his head, the two sections of the kitchen door were opened wide and he was sent on his way with the repeated injunction: “Now, don’t forget, tell your master to bake them carefully.” The arrival and departure of the baker’s boy was the cue for the family helpers to collect their reluctant yet weary offspring and take their leave. For, they had to get some rest for another days’ cake making.
Two days before Christmas, the tall fragrant pine-tree almost reaching the ceiling, would be standing a corner of the living room, and on that evening, we would be allowed to help father and mother with the decorations. The Christmas tree ornaments would be brought down from the top of mother’s cupboard, where, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, they had been lying since last Christmas. How carefully we handled those preciously fragile ornaments. A little pressure from a child’s hand and they crumbled to bits and pieces, like a dried ball of mud. What a large assortment of ornaments we had! They came to Jerusalem from all parts of the world: Switzerland, Germany, England, Sweden, Japan, and the United States. We couldn’t decide which we liked best, the diaphanous birds with real feathers for tails or the cluster of little opal bells with their delightful tinkle. Not all the ornaments were imported. Our most treasured Christmas possession was the beautiful hand-carved creche set fashioned out of olive wood by the highly skilled artisans of Bethlehem. This we placed on a low coffee table near the Christmas tree. The set included figures of Joseph, Mary, and the Christ-child– proportionally somewhat too big, we thought– three shepherds with their staffs, the three wise men, two little sheep and the most charming little donkey, with one ear sticking very high up in the air.
We spent the larger part of Christmas eve watching the clock, for the excitement did not begin until late afternoon, when muffled up very warmly, father, mother, and the three of us drove to the Shepherd’s Field just outside Bethlehem, to take part in the annual All Nations Christmas service and carol sing arranged by the Y.M.C.A. The Shepherds Field is a fairly small patch of grassland with olive trees where, according to tradition, the angle appeared to the shepherds and brought them tidings of Christ’s birth. The service is held in the open.
Pilgrims, tourists, and visitors from all parts of the world joined native Arab Christians in singing familiar Christmas carols, each in his own language. Standing in the icy cold air of a late Bethlehem afternoon, with the sky luminously clear, waiting for the evening star to make its appearance, rubbing shoulders with all the nations of the world, I was always overpowered by a feeling of exciting oneness with all the universe. The gospel according to St. Luke is first read in Arabic, then in English. More carols are sung. And then the simple service is over. Strangers turn to each other smiling, wishing each other a “Merry Christmas” in a score of languages. After the service, the throng of people descends into a large natured cave, which must have provided shelter to shepherds and wayfarers since time began. There, a shepherds’ supper is laid out: thin flat rounded loaves of bread, barbecued lamb, and olives from the olive-groves surrounding Bethlehem.
Sometimes at Christmas there would be several inches of snow on the ground. And then our excitement had no bounds, for snow is not a matter-of- fact phenomenon in the Holy Land. We might have a snowfall once in every three years, and then the snow lasts for three days at most. Snow had the power to send us into transports of excitement. We had not acquired the American child’s seasoned acceptance of it, nor had we acquired his skill in fashioning snowmen. However, even an American child, skilled veteran of countless snowfalls, would have admired out marksmanship in snowball throwing.
Christmas Eve, after the Shepherds Field service, was spent either at or home or at the uncle’s next in seniority to father. The whole extended family of grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins attended.
A magnificent spectacle welcomed us as we entered the living room. Gaily wrapped gifts were placed under the Christmas tree. Crepe paper streamers, colorful balloons, and paper lanterns with lighted candles hung from the ceiling. Jerusalem houses are built of a beautiful red or white stone and the danger from fire is minimal. In the center of the room stood a beautiful polished brass brazier or charcoal burner, with chestnuts resting in the grey embers, which let off a dull red glow. First we had dessert: delicious home-made fruit salad with lots and lots of cream beaten to a frothy lightness by mother and aunts, dried figs, walnuts, almonds, raisins, bananas from Jericho and juicy oranges from the northern coastland, a varied assortment of cookies and cakes, chocolate bars, small packages of candy, and of course roasted chestnuts. Red wine, locally brewed in the monasteries of Latrun and Cremisan was passed around. Wine in reasonable quantities was held to be good for us children. It was supposed to put color in our cheeks and act as a tonic in the cold winter months.
When everyone had had enough, and was maybe lingering over a glass of wine, or smoking a cigar or nargila (water pipe), it was our turn to perform. It had become a tradition for us children to sing the most familiar Christmas carols in Arabic. What a discordant din we must have produced, for not one of us could keep a tune. But the applause was always gratifyingly enthusiastic, for all the members on my father’s side of the family were tone– deaf.
As we finished our performance, the front-door bell would ring. “Who could that be?” Our elders asked the same question every year, feigning wonder and surprise. But we knew, as we rushed to be the first to open the door. On the threshold stood the fattest, jolliest Santa Claus. He would go around shaking hands with every member of the family, kissing the children, inquiring in his deep voice whether they had been good children this year, and whether they had done well in school. He made us older children and grown-ups laugh delightedly with his unsteady gait, his shaking beard and his rumbling laugh, but while we tried to tease him by pulling his beard, the little children would run to father or mother and hold tight to them, a little frightened by this fat, red-garbed man with the long white beard and strange muffled voice. “How does he get here?” we would ask father and mother. “Why he comes on camel-back across the eastern desert,” would be the answer. Santa Claus would distribute the gaily-wrapped packages which had been subjected all evening to the curious, conjecturing stares of all of us. Oh , the excitement of unwrapping those gifts to find out whether the longed-for, prayed for item was among them. Exhausted and intoxicated by the excitement, the gifts, the rich food, we were finally dragged off to bed. Christmas Eve was over. Of course, Santa would make another appearance that night, as we slept, to fill our stockings, and tomorrow after mass in St. Jacob’s Church in the Holy Sepulchre, we would have a wonderful Christmas dinner at grandfather and grandmother’s, but, and we sighed a little sadly as we dropped off to sleep, we would have to wait another year to repeat the exciting evening.
*Mrs. Joury was born in Nazareth, Palestine, and is now a Jordanian citizen. She began her education at the Beirut College for Women in Beirut, Lebanon, continued at the American University at Cairo, Egypt, and obtained her B.A. degree from Smith College in Northampton, Mass. Mrs. Joury received a M.A. degree from Haverford College at Haverford, Pennsylvania. Following the completion of her studies, she worked as an Information Officer for the Jordanian Tourist Department, as an Instructor and Assistant Dean of Women at the American University of Beirut, and in the Research and Translation Office in Beirut. She was also employed as a Librarian at the Arab States Delegation Office in New York City.
