All warm and fuzzy...

At this time of year, many of us expats here realize how much we miss the traditional holidays of our home countries.  Even if we are Muslim and didnt celebrate many things like Christmas and Easter back home, when holiday times roll around here, many feel a nostalgic tug of the heartstrings.  This year, my friends and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving together--a totally traditional meal complete with pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce...it was a lovely, lovely day with dear friends who have truly become "family" here.  When you're away from blood family, your "love" family becomes even more precious.  Thank God for true friends.

So here the Christmas season is upon us once again--and Egypt is lots of fun because we have two holidays here--western Christmas celebrated on December 25 and Egyptian Coptic Christmas on January 7.  The stores and malls are all decorated for the season, and I find myself walking through, humming along to the Christmas carols played over the loudspeaker.  The weather this year is very cold here and so I really feel it 'tis the season! 

Now I know there are varying Islamic opinions on Muslims celebrating non-Islamic holidays.  The opinions run from it being extremely haram (forbidden) to whatever floats your boat.  I tend to take a middle ground.  While I dont believe in the divinity of Jesus (in Islam he is considered a beloved prophet) and the thought of going back to the Catholic traditions actually makes my skin crawl, I do love the idea of the lights and pine trees and gifts and decorations and all the wonderful smells and sounds of this winter holiday.  In a word, I guess you could say I personally have taken "Christ" out of Christmas.  However, at the same time, I fully believe and revere this verse of Quran:

'Behold! The angels said: "O Mary! God gives you glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world & the Hereafter & of (the company of) those nearest to God.She said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?" He said: "Even so: God creates what He wills: When He has decreed a plan, He but says to it, 'Be,' & it is!" ' 3:45-47

So what has Christmas come to mean to me?  Basically it's simply loving memories of a wonderful time when I was little, my beloved grandparents were still alive, and life was so simple.  It was a slower, smaller reality...before the internet and satellites made us a global village.  Before global warming when winter was winter and summer was summer, and we got "dressed up" to go downtown to do our shopping.  It was actually overwhelming that the stores stayed open until 9 PM, and getting back home by 10 at night was practically scandalous--it was only the fact that it was shopping season that made it somehow acceptable.

When "Christmas" baking began right after Halloween was over, and the fruit and date and nut cakes had to age for a couple months in big metal cans in the basement.  When cookie baking and decorating were the highlights of the weeks before, and putting up the tree was fun instead of a drag.  When we used the same antique ornaments year after year, having been passed down from generation to generation with loving care and careful unwrapping.  When even the dog had a stocking hung from the mantle piece.

I could go on and on, and this post has taken me far too long to write because I keep getting lost in the memories of how wonderful it all was back then.  So even though things have changed--mostly the fact that I no longer celebrate Christmas as I used to--I still love the warm memories, and in truth, wish things were as simple now as they were then.

Happy Holidays all!!!