When you go to a co-existence school that includes all the pertinent ethnicities and religions in your geographic area, Christmas is likely to be a part of your curriculum. Hence, Raia and Lucas have been basking in Tis the Season for a few weeks now.
Raia's first encounter with Santa was actually with Baba Noel!
Note the decor in Raia and Lucas's classrooms (where I visited so I too could get my fill of holiday spirit). Raia's class also toured a church outside the Old City to ogle the Christmas decorations. This tour was replete with a visit from Baba Noel!
I visited Raia's classroom to get in the holiday mood
As you can see, a plethora of holidays are converging and colliding. Happy Hanukkah!
Only in the Middle East: An olive tree serves as the Christmas tree
Not to be outdone: Lucas's classroom!
And here is Raia coloring in her "Mother and Child' stained glass window!
But when you go to a kindergarten that happens to be reform Jewish, Christmas is "extracurricular"/spectacular. And everyone in the class makes a mandatory appearance at your Christmas party. Because everyone wants to know: What does a REAL Christmas tree look like? And by real, they mean, one not seen in the movies but in real life, like at my house. Because we have a real fake tree.
And so, with nary 48 hours until we would be leaving the country for more wintry climes (NY=White Christmas), my entire class (plus siblings and parents) was invited to our (relatively tiny) apartment for a Christmas celebration just 5 kilometers from where it all began!
Here's me opening the door to the humble beginnings of the Ultimate Play Date
Here's me 30 minutes later: I may have passed out from the shock and overwhelming joy of hosting ALL my friends at MY house at one time.
Shock. And awe.
Truth is, they all came for this photo op right here: Rockefeller Center, move over!
That was about 50 people who mistook our humble Bethlehem Road (oh the irony of that name!) apartment for the Fifth Avenue department store windows!
I prefer to leave people guessing about how I am feeling, rather than use words to inform them. And this time, my parents guessed right that YES I would LOVE to host about dozens of people in my home for a Christmas party. It probably started with how I enthusiastically ran around with my aide's phone at school one morning this week showing everyone photos of our decorated tree. That small gesture spawned one of the largest Christmas parties in the Jewish state since the birth of Jesus. Who was Jewish. But never mind. (This video might clear things up, or absolutely not, but may be really funny.)
It was a night of miracles, which characterize both Hanukkah and Christmas, making this party ever more significant. Here were just a few miracles from Saturday night:
For the first time in their existence, every toy in our home was played with! (Most parents know that kids do not play with their own toys.) It was as if The Island of Misfit Toys was released from its bondage and all the toys were loved yet again.
Not one toy was broken or missing!
The tree remained standing!
My friend's baby sister's shoes were found the next day under the tree!
We had more food and sugar than children to consume it all!
More people drank mulled cider than spiced wine!!
Since I don't use many words, my drop to the floor to sort of soak it all in was probably an indication that yes, I was in shock and awe and utter delight to host the ultimate play date/Christmas party.
Really what we took away as loot from this Ultimate Play Date/Christmas Party is that you don't always have to go to a coexistence school to be loved and accepted. Sometimes you just get lucky enough to be surrounded by the best friends that have all bonded together despite different religions and chromosomal pairings.
And that is what the spirit that birthed Christmas is all about! Merry Christmas everyone!
It ain't Rockefeller Center, but it's the best we got (Jerusalem YMCA)
Getting all geared up for the big day!
It's actually her third Christmas, but this is the first time that Raia has any conscious grasp of the holiday. For her first Christmas, Raia was 6 weeks old, smaller than a stocking and was still supposed to be en utero another three weeks. Hence, she was oblivious to anything but milk.
Raia spent her second Christmas suffering from jet and baby lag as we celebrated in NY having arrived a week before. Christmas was more like an appetizer for Zemmy's (Zia Em) wedding than a holiday in itself that year. And Raia slept through the main part of the day which includes opening the presents that awaited us under the tree.
But this year was different. Preemie no longer, Raia now manages several spheres of influence in the world. And thus she was all ready for Christmas this time around.
It all started with decorating the tree. She didn't just participate, she owned the tree decorating. She hung dozens of ornaments (on the same three branches) while Lucas and I grew bored and tried to break them.
Then she fully dove into our Christmastime tradition of watching The Little Drummer Boy every night before bed. We line up on the sofa for our mini-movie and repeat words like "frankincense" and "crystalline." Afterwards, Raia stands, bundles up her blanket in her arms, turns to the tree and says, "G'night Christmas." And she heads to bed.
Raia also vociferously participated in making gingerbread cookies this year. Mommy, trying (and failing) to outsmart us, attempted to take us separately to cut and decorate our own cookies in order to mitigate a disaster while enhancing our fine motor skills. However, Raia was present for each cutting and decorating session, impossible to extricate from the kitchen. Every cookie has her fingerprints.
I was chosen and anointed by God to place the star atop the tree
He was jealous
Nevertheless, we are working against the tide regarding holiday spirit. While you in the West are wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and angling to leave work early on Christmas Eve, we - 3 miles from the very birth of Jesus - have zero sense that the holiday is lurking out there auspiciously on the calendar. Tomorrow.
It is a regular work week here. There is no wind-down to vacation. No lights on the apartment buildings. No music in the stores. It's all a bit anticlimactic.
And as Lucas noted, "There's no snow!" Yes, welcome to the Middle East, my son.
In fact, tomorrow is a full-on day of normalcy including schools and shops operating an open house at a school my parents must check out for us for the future (registration begins in no time for next year).
Hence, and since we are all still babies to some extent lacking in cognizance of calendar days, we shall officially declare Friday Christmas Eve and Saturday - Shabbat and a day of hushed traffic and shuttered shops in Jerusalem - Christmas! And we babies shall be none the wiser!
Every day for us babies is like the movie Groundhog Day. Whether a holiday or a weekend, we arise in utter darkness at 6, the latest. We don't know sleeping in and we don't know calendar dates. As far as we are concerned, you rally us to get ready for school or you don't. And then, for mysterious reasons, such as "the weekend" or "holidays," we stay home.
So we would have no idea if holidays were on a certain day. Christmas could be in July. You say it, we believe it.
But most importantly, in an effort to ease her guilt at faulty parenting and to ensure that we have the right idea of what's going on here, mommy randomly asks us why we celebrate Christmas or who was born on Christmas. To which, (to her relief) we answer, "Jesus!" Whew.
So as we prepare to celebrate, Merry Shabbat and Christmas Shalom!
