Christmas in Cairo

It always seems like the stores in the US begin selling Christmas decorations and preparing for the holidays way too early. Here in Cairo, I was lucky to see a store displaying a sign of the approaching holiday season, and I certainly didn't see in Christmas trees on top of cars or Salvation Army bell-ringers, and unfortunately, I didn't hear any Christmas songs playing either.

I wasn't expecting much of a Christmas celebration in Egypt because the vast majority of people are Muslim and don't even celebrate it, and the Christians who do celebrate, consider January 7th, not December 25th, as their holiday. A part of me didn't even want to try to celebrate it because I knew it would not be the same.

However, I did try to introduce some of the "American" traditions to my host family by making stockings for each member. Izzy and I bought the most suitable material we could find, and then improvised by cutting out the shape of a "big sock" (as we call them in Arabic), sewing the pieces together, adding some tasteful decorations, writing their name on the front, and then filling them with chocolate and other treats. I woke up early on Christmas Day and put them under the tree for my host family to find when they woke up. Although the actual opening of the stockings was pretty anti-climactic, I had a lot of fun with that project.

I also went over to Izzy's house one evening, a few days before Christmas to make gingerbread cookies. We had gone to the store by ourselves to buy all the ingredients, and then prepared the dough in an improvised fashion, but unfortunately I wasn't able to actually cut out and bake the cookies because we forgot that the dough had to be refrigerated for two hours. The cookies turned out satisfactorily, but were a little disappointing because we didn't have any decorations for them.

Izzy and I attended a Christmas Eve service at a quaint, stone Lutheran Church near downtown Cairo, which I really enjoyed because I was finally able to sing some Christmas carols! The pastor was American, and most of the (small) congregation appeared to be foreigners, so it was surprising how similar everything seemed, even though we were in Cairo. The atmosphere was definitely not the same as back home, but I was glad I went.

My host family also surprised me by bringing home a REAL tree a few days before Christmas. They were all exclaiming how "huge" the tree was, and I couldn't help but smile and agree that this five-foot tall, potted tree was indeed "very big." Nevertheless, I was thrilled that they had gone out of their way to actually buy a tree. The next afternoon, I went with my host sisters and host mom to the nearby mall to buy a bunch of cheap decorations from the stores there, and we returned around 11:30 pm, and we put the lights and all the decorations on the tree as soon as we got home. I also played some of Andy Williams' Christmas carols on YouTube to get more in the Christmas spirit.

My host mom and sister surprised me with some beautiful gifts as well - my host mom gave me a pretty silver necklace with the head of Nefertiti as the pendant, and my host sister gave me some tasteful, small silver loop earrings, so I've been wearing these gifts nearly every day!

AFS organized an outing a few days after Christmas to see the Nutcracker ballet at the Cairo Opera House, which was a great treat! Unfortunately, the music was recorded, but I enjoyed the performance.

I spent the New Year's with my family at home, so we celebrated it with a big cake and kisses to go around. It was a nice occasion, but anticlimactic, as it always seems to be anyway. There were no scenes of Times Square on TV, and definitely no champagne - alcohol is forbidden in Islam, but my host family is very 'family-oriented,' so I enjoyed being with them. (Above: our NSLI-Y group on the steps of the Opera House. Below: my host sister, Nouran, and me with chocolate Santas that my host mom brought home for New Year's.)

I hope you all had a happy holiday season and enjoyed the massive snow storm (for the East coast people) that I heard all about! Although Christmas away from home is never the same, I was more than pleasantly surprised with how everything turned out. Have a happy 2010!!