|
For Christians in
Palestine Christmas will be a sad celebration this year.
After one year of Al-Aqsa
Intifada Palestinian villages are isolated by the fresh outbreak of
violence.
This year will be
characterized by a sense of solitude and loneliness for Christmas.
Here there is a
remembrance of how a Christian used to celebrate Christmas in
Palestine:
“I was
born In Jerusalem in 1932, a family of seven on the 24th of December
in the morning
we would
board the buses with our families and neighbors and take a half hour
trip to
Bethlehem,
and the festivities would begin with the marching bands from schools
from all
over
Palestine with boy scouts, girl scouts leading the march to nativity
square. Then the
groups from
all over the world would perform dances and singing. We would spend
the
entire
night there and get our spots in line to the church of the nativity
for midnight mass.
We would
sing all the hymns in Latin and in Arabic. My sister Angela had a
beautiful voice
she would
sing the loudest and the other voices would die down to hear her
sing. After the
mass was
over we would stand in line to ring the church bells my brothers
would sneak out
of church a
bit early to stand in line to be the first. And they would get a
scolding from my
parents but
since it was Christmas they really weren’t mad. By 1am the buses
would be
waiting for
us to take us back to Jerusalem. We would not be able to sleep we
would keep
sneaking
down stairs to see if Santa came with the presents under the tree,
Mom would
catch us
and send us back up to our beds. In the morning we would come down
and find all
the gifts
under the tree (Santa must have come at 3am) our poor .
|
