The other day I ran a lesson about holidays. It was our first class back from the week long Kurban Bayramı break, and I for one, wasn’t ready to dive back into school. As it turned out, my students weren’t either.
This was the week of Thanksgiving, a holiday rarely on the radar of non-American/Canadians. We discussed the types of holidays—cultural (or civic) and religious. I asked them to list a number of holidays, Turkish, American, and international. Each class did an exceptional job coming up with a broad variety, though there was one class in particular that takes the cake when it comes to a creative approach to the assignment.
When we discussed what Christmas is, they were baffled. The word, like in many European languages, is based on the latin word for the holiday, its Noel in Turkish. Once I explained that there were Christmas trees involved, they perked right up and figured out what I was talking about. When we went back over the long list I had amassed on the board to categorize the holidays, there was a unanimous opinion that Christmas was cultural. I corrected them, saying that no, Christmas is a religious holiday. To this, one vociferous student stood up and said, no hocam, its not religious. Well, actually first he clicked at me (you Fulbrighters know what I'm talking about) then he denied my statement.
I tried to explain to him that I really was quite sure that Christmas was a religious holiday, but he stood his ground. I tried to explain that it is the birthday of Jesus or in Turkish İsa but he assured me that this is not true. The whole class had chimed in, telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about and that I also had the date of Christmas wrong. Then, I thought, ha maybe they are thinking of the Greek Christmas. But no, Christmas is, according to my students, on the 31st of December.
No, that is New Year, I explained. Yes, they said, New Year and Christmas, these are the same.
Figgity-false. (That's for you Mr. Richard.)
Turks have recently imported American consumerism. And, with this has come a few extras bundled into the mix. One of these is every marketing team's wet dream, the Christmas shopping season. But, what do you do in a country that has no religious or cultural holiday that routinely occurs in late December? You bundle your plastic Christmas trees and tinsel in with the New Year's celebrations. They even eat turkey on New Year's. The problem it seems, was that nobody had bothered to explain to the Turkish people that they don't celebrate Christmas, they are celebrating something called Consumerism.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm loving this. I found molasses and tree ornaments at the local Migros shopping center yesterday. And, while they may not have cookie cutters, they have all the necessary ingredients to make Christmas cookies. One of my colleagues, who will probably get his own blog post at some point, sent me an email wondering where online we could purchase Christmas trees. It seems one of his friends wanted to know. I told him something along the lines of "Hell if I know, but let me in if you get to the bottom of it." I encouraged my roommate to respond to his email, "Bitch, I'm a Jew." I don't know if she did, and if she did, I don't know if he would have understood but man...
Even so, I must admit, there's no place like home.
But of course, I'm not one to roll over and take it. I fought back. I went to the Carrefour (the French version of a super-Wal-Mart) and loaded up on said molasses (3 jars' worth--I wasn't sure which would taste best so I got all of them just in case), made both sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies
went on iTunes and downloaded The Holiday and Love Actually, scrounged around for some printer paper and cut up paper snowflakes
and listened to the most amazing Christmas mix ever-- A Very Special Christmas (the first one made) featuring songs like Christmas in Hollis, Back Door Santa, and Winter Wonderland by the Eurythmics.
Dara and I made latkes and stumbled on an old synagogue in Edirne when I went to visit her in Kırklareli this past weekend. The Turkish governement is investing over 3 million TL (roughly 1.75 million USD) over two years to rebuild the building. After talking to the engineer in charge of the project, it seems that weathering did the enormous structure in. Edirne is probably one of my favorite places in Turkey (far behind Istanbul, but I mean, Paris is behind Istanbul...) it used to have an enormous Jewish population until the population exchange in the 1920s.
There is something to be said for living in a part of the world that gave birth to the Big Three, no not Garnett, Pierce and Allen, but rather Islam, Christianity and Judaism. There is an enormous amount of historical sites here in Turkey that really are the roots of all three of these religions. I got to go to Nicaea a few weeks ago--I had no idea it was in Turkey until I was there.
I'm not a fan of spending the holiday season outside of the United States, but I guess Turkey has really come through for me in terms of holiday cheer, historical sites, and molasses.
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