seeking Christmas
Istanbul, Turkey
Turkey has had a reputation in recent times of being not particularly friendly to adherents of the Christian religion. We wondered what we’d find.
Christmas Day dawns – bright and early….well, early, but barely light. We are staying right next door to a mosque and the dawn prayer call rouses us from deep sleep.
Merry Christmas!
After checking out their “Christmas stockings”, filled with Turkish bookmark, chocolate bar and surprise toffee apple, we discover the children with noses in journals; this might be Christmas Day, but the strength of what-has-become-our-routine is powerful and they write and illustrate yesterday’s events as breakfast is prepared.
What could be better than thick creamy yoghurt to accompany pastries filled with apple and pistachios for a special breakfast? They are virtually Christmas mince pies!
The yoghurt comes in our-family-sized tubs for our-kind-of-price ~ 3kg for about NZ$5.
“I wonder what Christmas is like in Istanbul,” Rob murmurs as we step out from the hostel. We go out looking for signs of Christmas:
chestnuts roasting over an open fire
but they’re here because it’s winter, not because they’re a Christmas food
another Turkish-but-not-necessarilly-Christmassy food
that one’s not real Christmas either
that is to say, the turkey is real, but we saw it in Pergamum a couple of days ago, not in Istanbul today
Christmas Day is a Friday this year, and so Christmas in Istanbul means watching men streaming into the mosque for Friday prayers at midday, and then sitting in our hostel room listening to the same as they are loudly broadcast towards our window
Santa Claus has made it to Turkey, but not Jesus Christ.
Yesterday as we drove for six hours we listened to a Turkish radio station that was sympathetic to western Christmas tradition…..by that we mean they were playing Christmas songs. Once we’d heard Frosty the Snowman, I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in both English and Turkish, we wondered if there would be any carols. We were rewarded with five different versions of “Last Christmas I gave you my heart” – all in a row, one soppy wailing song after the other. The closest we got to a nativity song was “The Little Drummer Boy” (vague enough to be non-threatening, I guess) and a non-Christmas song that included the word *angel* and could, therefore, be classified as Christmassy. Perhaps the fact that the angel was positively mortal and not at all angelic made it safe enough!
Where was
* O little town of Bethlehem
* Joy to the world
* Hark, the herald angels sing
* We three kings (even if they weren’t kings, and possibly not three of them either!)
* Away in a manger
* Silent Night (even if it was more likely to have been a rowdy one)
* O holy night
* Once in royal David’s city
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
We’d have thought you might hear *while shepherds watched* here…each day on our road trip we saw shepherds sitting or standing by their flocks, leading them along the roadside or across fields…shepherds have been a concrete reminder of the nativity story for us this year. As was a shepherd’s cloak we saw today in the Grand Bazaar….along with all the treasure we saw there….and our Christmas lunch was also a reminder of this eastern story:
And while Turkey appears reluctant to allow mention of the True Christmas Story, it is preparing to welcome in a new year, ironically, the date of which is intrinsically linked to the person, Whose miraculous birth seems to be ignored here.
Tags: 2008/09, food, God, history, postcard: Turkey, tradition
rayres
Well, merry Christmas from over here, and God bless you and send you a happy new year!
Dear family,
How sad I am to see that your wonderful trip is coming to an end. I have been following you for most of your journey and have traveled vicariously to many interesting places.
I am always fascinated by folks that actually do what the rest of us just dream of doing!
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. It has been such a pleasure to ‘travel with you.’
I pray for traveling mercies as you return home. Thank you again for the pleasure of tagging along.
God bless,
Tee
South Carolina, USA
I’ve spent Christmas in Thailand, and that was what I noticed most too. Presence of Christmassy songs, decorations etc, but absense of any mention of Christ. But I guess we celebrate all kinds of things in the UK that I’m not sure I know the full story of, like Diwali, Eid, Chinese New Year. We have children’s story books telling us what they mean and try and get our heads around them, but for most people they’re just an excuse for fireworks.