Merry Christmas!

So I have become wretchedly behind on my blog…. It’s Christmas Eve and I just finally posted the blog about week 2 of our stay here… so if you haven’t already noticed it, please scroll down and also read “Adventures on the Mount of Olives”. Next, you can go on to read the blog entitled “Sonya visiting” which describes some of the adventures Sonya and I had a week ago when she was visiting from Canada. Finally, this last piece is a brief description of our Christmas plans… and of course most importantly, the purpose of this message is to wish you all A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKAH and a restful and enjoyable week with family and friends, irrespective of what religious holiday you may or may not be celebrating!

So for our Christmas plans:

Christmas here is surreal... in West Jerusalem, there is very sparse evidence that Christmas is tomorrow... no Christmas music anywhere, no shopping, no cards, no lights!! Of course, this isn’t entirely surprising, as only about 5% of the population in Israel is Christian, and in fact right now most people are celebrating Hanukah, which from what I can tell has much less commercialism associated with it than Christmas back home, and is therefore much less in your face. In the Old City, the occasional vendor is selling Christmas lights and kitschy plastic Christmas decorations… either because they are one of the minority Christians (Arab, Armenian etc), or because they are capitalizing on the people who are Christian and want to buy such things (most Old City vendors of religious souvenirs, whether related to Christianity or Judaism, are themselves Muslim ironically). Overall, the nicest evidence of Christmas is of course in the Churches, where large advent wreathes are suspended from the ceiling behind the altars… and where there is obvious preparation for a crèche to come soon.

For me personally, the other big thing missing to make it feel Christmassy is snow. This is somewhat ironic, as snow had very little to do with the original Christmas. Up until 2 days ago, the weather here was sunny and warm most days (between 18-22C mid day) and I would have happily traded a day of sun shine for a little snow. Since Monday, the weather has taken what I am told by locals a much more typical turn for this time of year… it is much colder (perhaps only in the low to mid teens during the day), cloudy and also very unpleasantly windy, as if a storm were coming any minute. There has also been more rain, especially overnight and there’s even snow in the north of Israel! To be honest, though I don’t mind the cooler weather, I miss the sun and warmth a little (it was very easy to get used to). Also, I really wish it had waited just a few more days, as it will likely interfere with our Christmas plans as you’ll see below.

Gerrit and I had originally hoped to spend Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, but found out that you need to apply for a ticket for mass at the Church of the Nativity back in October!! Well in October, we were on honeymoon, and then busy packing and getting ready to move... and frankly hadn't even started thinking about Christmas. So, instead, we will be having fried carp and potatoe salad at home and then going to Christmas Eve mass at the Jerusalem church that does mass in English (the churches here have divided things up, such that there a parish/church that does mass in every major language (English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Russian etc)). I was actually able to obtain some very fresh carp at the market yesterday… the poor fish only met its end after I selected it… The plan for Christmas day is to drive down to the Dead Sea and spend the weekend there... to make it a bit more special. If we stayed home, there's organizing and cleaning to do... and no Christmas tree, it would just feel like any other day! The problem with this ingenious plan to go to the Dead Sea is that it was hatched before the weather took a wintery turn. Now, I am worried whether it will be nice enough or warm enough to go on nature hikes in the Ein Gedi nature reserve or to swim in the Dead Sea as planned. Also, when it rains in Jerusalem, the water makes its way down to the Dead Sea a couple days later and roads can become flooded in flash floods! So stay tuned… in a few days I’ll hopefully be able to let you know how this Christmas turned out for us.