My Christmas Story: A young Muslim boy’s memories of Christmas
As every Christmas Season draws closer, my memories go back farther to a time gone-by when I was a little child of five years of age in KG1 at Terra Sancta, a Catholic school, in my hometown, Amman.
Vividly I still recall, as if it happened only yesterday, the year-end celebration in my class. I still recall with the most wonderful memories, my teacher Miss Mary showing my classmates and me the cartoons of “Jack and Jill went up the hill. Jack fell down and broke his crown….” As the cartoons ended, and I walked out of class heading home for two weeks vacation, “Santa Clause”, was standing at the door, holding a huge bag full of gifts, and handing each child a bag of candy.
Fifty-eight years later, I still see that Santa dressed in red and handing me the bag with the sweet and sour yellow-color lemon drops. The taste of those candy drops has never departed my lips. Christmas was always special in my home; a home for devout parents who prayed five times a day and recited the Scripture daily.
My dad would take my siblings and me to our Christian neighbors on Christmas Day to join in celebrations and congratulate them on the Holiday. We would leave their homes with our hands and pockets filled with dates and almond-filled cookies. My mother, may God bless her soul, a devout believer, would seize important occasions to take gifts to our beloved Christian neighbors as an expression of affection, and if the occasion was a new-born baby, her gift would be a Golden Cross.
Haifa, Palestine was my mother’s birthplace. My mother told me over and over again about Haifa. She spoke to me about her town, her street and her neighbors. Many times she told me how she and her Christian and Jewish neighbors living in the same building would always celebrate all three faiths holidays. Till the day she died, she recounted with affection her memories about her old neighbors whom she loved very dearly.
When I visited Haifa for the first time in 1994, I knew the place, a place that I set foot-in for the first time that year. I found my mother’s street. I found the Church, the Mosque, and the Baha’i Temple, exactly as she described them to me. She had created an indelible image in my mind. What I saw in real life was the picture she had painted in my mind. My mom left Haifa in 1948, but Haifa never left my mom. She took her memories with her. Every time she spoke about Haifa, a happy and sad smile appeared on her face.
As time never stops, and I grew older, even older now than my parents were back then, those good memories have stayed young. They remained the memories of a five-year old child, as if my age froze at five years and refused to accept the reality and sometimes the cruelty of a real world. Those good memories have lasted a lifetime. The memories relentlessly refuse to grow old!
As I travel back to my childhood and recall memories that to this very moment still bring joy and happiness to my inner soul, I have come to realize that I have a job unfinished! I had never thanked “Santa” for the “Lemon Drops”. I had never thanked Miss Mary for showing me the “Jack and Jill” cartoon. I had never understood why my Mom gifted the Golden Cross. I never thanked her for the many stories and all she did for me. I had never understood why my Dad took a five year old to “celebrate” Christmas with neighbors. I never said to him “Thank you Dad, for being a great example in co-existence and respect of others”.
Now, I understand the meanings of what they all did, each in their own ways. Now, I must say thank you to each and everyone who has shaped me to the person I am today. Thank you Santa, thank you Miss Mary, thank you my dear Mom, and thank you my dear Dad; it took me a lifetime to learn your lessons. But finally, I did.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Happy and Blessed New Year!
Omar M. Lattouf/Arab America Contributing Writer
(Omar Lattouf is a cardiac surgeon and a professor of surgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta)