Their First Christmas

My final holiday story (for now) is about celebrating Christmas with Syrian refugees.  Can you imagine never having celebrated Christmas?  For many of those who attended the party that night, it was their very first taste of the holiday, among Christians in the USA.  We felt so very privileged to be part of it!

This was a big event that took a LOT of planning and hard work… our hats are off to the organizers, who are local friends of ours.  Twenty-five Syrian refugee families were invited, and each family was seated at a table along with volunteers like us from area churches.  The centerpiece of each table was a small Christmas tree, and there were craft supplies on the table so that we could help the kids decorate their little tree to take home.  Of course, the food was the main thing, and there were traditional Syrian dishes along with meat and salads… and of course desserts!  Following the meal we all watched a film clip about the birth of Jesus, and sang Christmas carols.  Some Syrian musicians were on hand to provide additional entertainment, and the evening closed with everyone up on their feet, holding hands and doing a traditional line dance!

The family we shared a table with had six children, ranging in age from teenagers to a one-year-old.  After less than a year’s residence in the US, the parents’ English was still at a beginning level, but the older kids were already well on their way to becoming fluent.  The father had been an engineer in Syria; here, he is grateful for a job at a car wash.  We took lots of photos together and promised to keep in touch.

For this family and many others, it was the first time they had heard the Gospel Christmas story.  While we have many treasured family traditions from holidays past, it’s always a special experience to share the holiday with people who have never before celebrated it, people to whom its profound beauty and meaning are unknown.  The refugees we ate and danced with that evening have gone through suffering and trauma of many kinds, most of which they can’t even communicate.  We pray that the joy and love we shared that night will be a source of healing to them, and that before this year is over they will have discovered its Source.


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A Taste of Turkey

I was really anxious about that turkey!  It was Thanksgiving Day, and the kitchen was busy.  Having lived most of my adult life overseas, my experience is limited when it comes to putting on a Thanksgiving feast.  In most places we lived, turkeys were either unavailable or extremely expensive, and we often had no fellow Americans to celebrate with.  This was the first year we were cooking the entire dinner ourselves on US soil!  We had planned a simplified version of the feast, but it still seemed like a challenge to get everything timed just right.

Since our extended family gathering was scheduled for Sunday, we had Thanksgiving Thursday free.  So we decided to invite our new Iraqi friends to join us for the afternoon.  We had gotten to know Hadi when she worked in our training program as an Arabic language tutor.  She and her husband had both worked for a TV station in Iraq, but had had to flee during the war, and eventually arrived in the US as refugees.  We were unsure at first if they would enjoy our traditional American feast, but when we dropped by their apartment to extend the invitation, Hadi clapped her hands and, with a big grin, said that she had been hoping for a chance to taste turkey!  Their two children, who are learning English quickly in school, were excited as well.

Anxious as I was about the turkey and everything else, it was comforting to remember that since this was their first experience of American Thanksgiving, Hadi and her family wouldn’t know whether everything turned out perfectly or not; they had nothing to compare it to!  Our apartment filled with delicious smells coming from the oven, and we were just taking the bird out when our guests arrived, bearing a large tin of sweets as a gift.  Before bringing out the food, we each used a paper “feather” to write out something we were thankful for, and crafted our little turkey’s tail!

We feasted, and I was happy to see everyone taking second helpings of turkey and stuffing!  We talked about different holiday traditions we enjoyed, and shared some family memories.  After dinner we adjourned to the living room for games.  Many of our favorite games don’t require a lot of English to play… and win!  We finished off with my husband’s home-made pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

During our years living abroad, we were on the receiving end of more invitations than I could possibly count, to holiday celebrations of many types.  More often than not, the meat of choice was mutton, of course!  Now that we are back in the land of enormous frozen turkeys, I’m glad that I can do the inviting and share our traditions with newcomers.  We shared the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims with Hadi, a reminder that hospitality is woven throughout American history.


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