Fifth Day of Christmas

Today's holiday story comes from Phyllis Jardine. Phyllis grew up in Chatham, NB, and has many fond memories of the Miramichi. An accomplished author, in the past ten years her stories have appeared in many magazines such as Goodtimes, Homemakers, Readers' Digest and CARP, as well as several Spiritual/Inspirational magazines and on CBC Radio. Her latest effort, "Unpacking Memories," was published in this year's Christmas anthology A Maritime Christmas by Nova Scotia's Nimbus Publishing. This is her first time being published by Bread 'n Molasses magazine, but we certainly hope not the last. "Christmas in the Holy Land" was originally published in The Messenger of the Sacred Heart (Toronto, 2000).

Christmas in the Holy Land
By Phyllis Jardine

Silent Night—no carols on the local radio station, no church bells ringing from the high steeples, no holiday music on the narrow streets—not even a peep from her three children in the next room.

Christmas Eve 1970. Tiberias, Israel. Tucking a blanket around her baby son, the young mother whispered, “If I didn’t have so much to do, I’d have a good cry.”

Like a plait of delicate braids, her girls lay entwined—their arms and legs wrapped around each other. Salt and Pepper, everyone called them, one so fair and one so dark. By morning all three would be cuddled beside her in bed.

Before the move, women from the Netherlands and Ireland, whose husbands also served with UNTSO (United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization) in Palestine, had tried to prepare her for life in Israel. “You’ll see a big difference,” they’d said. ”Tiberias is very picturesque and pastoral compared to Damascus’ busy boulevards, but the people of Israel can be unfriendly. Take care.”

But on their first day in Tiberias, a neighbour arrived with a basket of grapefruit from her orchards. And on the second day, Elaina, the lady in the apartment below them, brought books for the children. Elaina Soloman, 62, was studying to be a Rabbi and although different—she wore long black gowns, like a nun—was most interesting. The girls thought of her as their fairy godmother.

“Elaina eats breakfast at night, Mummy.”
“I read all night and sleep all day,” Elaina laughed. “A real night bird,” she said in her fractured English.

Soon, a daily outing that accommodated everyone in the house of paper-thin walls became routine. While Elaina slept, the young mother and her three children set out to explore the countryside—her toddler in his stroller, her girls guarding his every move.

Like a scene from any small town in Canada, tiny shops dotted the narrow streets of Tiberias. But newer sights and smells also caught their attention as they walked and talked.

“Oh look,” the girls had squealed just that morning as they headed down to the market for their Christmas groceries.

Eucalypts and Palm trees lined the path around a huge lake. “The water’s a bit rough today,” she said, recalling how the lake was known for its violent storms. But the fishermen hoisting their catches of St. Peter’s fish into small fishing vessels worked as one with the wind.

“What’s St. Peter’s fish?” asked her youngest daughter.
“A tasty fish, about a foot long with fins that look like a comb,” she told them. “We’ll have some soon.”
“Is it the same fish Jesus fed the hungry?”
“No, they were sardines, just like we have in Canada.”

The sun spilled like melted butter over the lake as they sat on a bench snacking on cheese and Shabbat bread watching the fishermen. Good things happen along, she reminded herself as she relaxed. So pleasant, 70 degrees Fahrenheit. But the children were anxious to get to the market and the playground before climbing back up the hill to home.

Their house overlooked the lake, the Sea of Galilee called Lake Tiberias or as Elaina had informed her, Yam Kinneret, from the Hebrew word kinor for harp, the shape of the lake.

“Did Jesus really eat sardines?” her youngest daughter asked out of the blue, her nose all puckered up. The little mother cherished her time with her children, their expressions, their moments of discovery. But, her friend Elaina had found this life peculiar.

“Israeli women are much more off on their own. Working. Independent,” Elaina said.
“Well, I hope to stay home for at least a few more years. My baby is just 14 months old. They need my mothering now,” she told Elaina.
“You are possibly correct,” said Elaina. “Lives are the story of how we remember. Especially to remember the first years. Life should be a gentle movement. We would be lost without a sense of home.”

For three years, peace had prevailed in the Holy Land. But tanks and armoured vehicles still rode the highways. “It’s a strange world,” her husband had said one day. “Here I am, a Canadian helping to keep peace in the Middle East, while back home they’re-enacting The War Measures Act.”

United Nations Observers like her husband, monitored and reported violations of the Ceasefire between Israel and its Arab neighbours. “Cooking and looking,” he jokingly called it. The neutral observers lived part-time in trailers in No Man’s Land between Syria, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, while families lived in apartments in nearby towns and cities.

“Thankfully, he’ll be home tomorrow morning.”

Looking about the four room flat, she thought of Christmases back home in Canada. So different. “But, other than the dampness and the snakes in the garden, this tiny place with all its odds and sods of furniture is rather homey: a wicker loveseat and a prayer-rug from Beirut; a brass coffee table and a mosaic games table from Damascus; a Grundig radio from Germany. In the corner, a lean Cypress tree from Jerusalem. And beneath the branches of the tree that looked more like a Cedar tree, a creche of rich olive wood from Bethlehem.”

“Christmas 1970 will turn out okay,” she promised herself. They'd hung their stockings, decorated the scrawny tree, and the gifts her mother had sent from New Brunswick were all wrapped in colourful tissue: clothes, books, and special treats—plum pudding, fruit cake, and summer savoury.

“No toys, however.” There'd been so much excitement back in October when the girls had printed their Santa letters and they’d mailed their Christmas order off to an American catalogue.

“Will Santa know where we are?” her youngest daughter asked.
“Of course. Santa knows everything,” her eldest daughter replied.

But here it was Christmas Eve and nothing from the mail. Her grandmother had once said that to live deepest, you have to go to the places that help you find a slower rhythm. On the kitchen table in the damp flat sat Santa's lunch, a card for Dad with lots of kisses and hugs, and a handsome crayoned picture of all the family in his UN jeep.

They were the only Canadians with children in the Middle East. Because of safety reasons, Canadian wives weren’t encouraged to accompany husbands to Palestine; however, once her husband saw how families from other countries like Ireland, Belgium, Denkark, France, Australia, New Zealand and The Netherlands managed, he’d sent for his little family.

Tomorrow they would attend church in Cana. Bethlehem was too far away, 100 miles to the southwest. Besides you needed an invitation to attend mass in Bethlehem. The humble people of the village of Cana always welcomed them. And after mass they’d buy some of Father Vanencio’s wine and take it home to celebrate Christmas with Elaina and the Canadian bachelors they’d invited to dinner.

The little mother checked her portable oven and propane refrigerator, hoping the Christmas goodies would keep another day. Tiberias was an expensive place. When her husband was home they always shopped at kibbutzim for food, but Ein Gev, the largest kibbutz was too far to travel on her own. So she’d purchased her vegetables locally and the butcher had chopped, plucked and prepared three plump chickens (no turkeys in Israel) as they waited.

“Ugh,” her daughters had cried .
"For the little Canadian family," he smiled, and wished them a Happy Holiday. He was a Sabra, as native-born Israeli are called, after the prickly pear whose tough skin and soft inner fruit is supposed to resemble the Israeli character. She accepted his gestures as a gift. He had been kind when it was probably easier to be indifferent.

"Just the chicken dressing to prepare and I'm off to bed," she said, trying to absorb herself in the spirit of Christmas. Soon, she was into the reverential reconstruction of the Nativity Story.

“They spoke little, for the miracle that was to come was between them and binding them. Joseph was beset with worry.”
"Him too?" the young mother smiled.
“Joseph was abashed, embarrassed and confused by the gifts of Kings: a packet of gold dust, a jar of frankincense (fragrant essence of oils from East Africa) and myrrh (a rare orange-coloured gum used as perfume).”

As the BBC crackled with Midnight mass from Bethlehem, she heard the first knock. Padding to the door in her husband’s bathrobe, she hesitated. Then heard familiar voices.

Having driven all the way through Galilee and Samaria, through Nazareth, Nablus and Ramallah on the West Bank, to Jerusalem and back on Christmas Eve, three Canadian UNMO’s, armed with parcels from the UN post office in Jerusalem, tiptoed into her flat. With smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts, they helped her assemble a big cardboard playhouse and then place the dolls, teddy bears, trucks, tea sets, a Jack in the Box, and a game of Snakes and Ladders under her tree.

"Gifts of the Magi," she whispered to them. “Shukran. Thank you.”

Tomorrow we present a Scrooge Approved Christmas from Kathy Tapley-Milton.