From Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist
How
much easier it would be for me to fulfill a commission to write an article
titled ‘Christmas Around the World,’ if I were actually free to travel, but I
do not have that freedom for various reasons. Therefore, I call on my crafty
Muse to settle on my shoulder and whisper in my ear an imaginary tale of travel,
one in which I call on a number of women in faraway places, each of whom is
immersed in high holiday celebrations unique to her culture. I am giddy over
the prospect of beginning my make-believe trip with my Muse depositing me
smack-dab in the presence of a Native American sister.
Paulette welcomes me into her kitchen and
then very graciously explains to me that embracing the Christian tradition is a
thorny issue for many of her people given the injustices that America’s
indigenous people have faced under white domination, both in the past and the
present. Even so, the good spirit of the season permeates her culture in
admirable ways. “You showed up just in time to catch me before I leave for a meeting
of the Partnership with Native Americans (PWNA),” Paulette informs me. Responding
to the quizzical look on my face, she continues. “We spread holiday cheer in
the way of blankets, nutrition and education services, medical screenings, and
more to over 30,000 of our Elders, children, and families in approximately 110
reservation communities here in the Northern Plains and the Southwest. Winter
is brutal in these reservations and rural communities, and we work hard to come
together in the spirit of giving at this special time.” Upon making my exit
into a frozen morning, I drop a couple of Andrew Jacksons into Paulette’s PWNA
donation basket and cringe at the gruesome symbolism of that particular face
being imprinted on those U. S. $20.00 bills.
I suppose my Muse took pity on me and decided
to defrost me, because in the blink of an eye, I am stretched out on the blinding
sand of a beach in Melbourne, Australia. I am clad in a bathing suit, and the
unmistakable aroma of seafood sizzling on a grill within smelling distance
floods my mouth with saliva. Jingle Bells, the jolly Christmas song, rings out
from an electronic device. The incongruity is not lost on me as I push to my
feet to the greeting of a scantily-clad blonde goddess waving a barbecue fork in
her hand. “We thought you were dead to the world, myte,” she says to me. “Come
on and git yerself a plyte. It’s prawns on the barbie, stryght from Dad’s boat
this mornin’.” Kathryn is the name of this supernatural being, and she is only
one of many just like her in her large circle of beach party buddies. Someone
thrusts a frosty bottle of beer in my hand and I recoup my senses enough to
inquire, “Jingle Bells?” “What else?” Kathryn replies. “It’s Christmas! Eat up!
Drink up! The day is jist gittin’ started. You don’t want to miss Carols by
Candlelight tonight.” “Carols by Candlelight?” “Yeh, you know! The big charity
evint to help out the needy in the community.” To get in the spirit of things, I
chug the cold beer and pretend the hot white sand squishing between my bare
toes is bone-chilling snow.
A
strong scent reminiscent of home that I am powerless to resist lures me away
from summertime Melbourne to a cozy dining room in Tokyo, Japan. A table laden
with buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken is occupied on all sides by a young
Japanese family comprised of a mother, father, and two children. Apparently I
am the only dinner guest at what Aimi, the lovely mother, explains to me is
their “hidden Christmas”. While the stigma of what in Japan is mainly a secular
event is dissipating thanks to ubiquitous Western influences wrought through
television and social media, influences such as America’s KFC as the food of
choice for Christmas Day in Japan, still many people whose leanings remain Shinto
or Buddhism, observe the day on the quiet. “It ruffles fewer feathers that way,”
an otherwise very Japanese Aimi tells me in ironical American terminology.
Muse is anxious to send me further into my
whirlwind tour, and next, and for a minute or two, I wonder if Muse has
time-slipped me back to America’s Old West as the gentle steed on whose back I
ride trots me beneath a wide, wood archway that spans an opening in split-rail fencing
on both sides. The fencing wanders and then evaporates into what appears a boundless,
misty landscape. A carved sign in wood at the crest of the archway proclaims,
“LET’S GO GREEN!” And then I know I am in current time, the ominous Climate
Change time that does not withdraw to a voiceless corner even on Christmas Day.
Great plumes of crystalized breath billow from the nostrils of the horse, and
my own frosty breath hazes the lenses of my spectacles. I am in cold, cold
country—not quite to the Arctic plain, but close enough, I am pretty sure. No
level treeless tundra is this, though, for there are evergreen trees, evergreen
trees upon evergreen trees as far as the eye can see, planted in deliberate, neat
and regimental rows, like line upon line of locked-arm chorus girls frocked in frilly
green. Donned in blue-jeans and a fleece-layered black-and-red-plaid flannel
shirt, a Paul Bunyan-like figure materializes out of nowhere suddenly. “Welcome
to Saskatchewan’s Evergreen Tree Farm. We’ve been expecting you. I’m Anne,”
this burly Canadian female greets me. “You look like you need a warm-up. Come
on up to the house. There’s a rum and brandy hot toddy there with your name on
it.”
A profusion of Christmas decorations, evergreen
garlands, and twinkling lights at every door, window, and eave forms an almost
impenetrable obstacle course to the entrance of the place. In the wake of my
hostess, I step across the threshold and enter a winter wonderland, a plethora
of all things Christmas. A steaming mug of the hot toddy beckons me to the
table upon which it rests, and on the stovetop, the valve on the lid of a pressure
cooker dances up and down. The aroma emitting from it is heavenly. “Have you
ever had frontier bison stew?” Anne asks me. My stomach drops to my toes and I
shake my head. I feel my enthusiasm wilt to a point of no return. I am not so
sure my belly is ready for frontier bison stew. “I thought bison was an
endangered species,” I state, my mouth going desert-dry in my unease. “Our
First Nation people have taken the herds in hand and are bringing the numbers
back to almost double now,” Anne explains. “The grazing habits of the herds are
also reestablishing the indigenous grasses that are much better carbon
capturers than non-native plant-life that was introduced in colonial times.
With their bison and my trees, the First Nation people and I are working hard
to do right by Mother Nature.”
Don’t get me wrong. My gratitude for all of
Anne’s hospitality is as mammoth as the woman herself. This big-hearted female
had a hot toddy waiting to warm my icy bones. And it wouldn’t surprise me one
bit if she had grabbed that bison by its horns in her immense lumberjack hands
and wrestled it to the ground all by herself, and then saw to all further
machinations to get it into her pressure cooker just in time for my arrival at
her tree farm this Christmas Day. And while I also appreciate all the laudable
environmentalism, suffice to say that my main motivator at the moment is finding
a gracious way of sidestepping Anne’s looming offer of a bowl of that bison
stew. I send a private, silent message to my Muse that I am ready to move on to
the next spot on my journey. Muse hears my plea and at mach-speed, I turn up in
Jerusalem of all places, which I am to learn is planet Earth’s ‘City of Three
Christmases’.
While terrorists are wiping out Christians
far and wide in the Middle East, the Jewish state of Israel is the one place in
the area in which Christians can practice their religion freely. Their number
is small: only about 2.5% of the total Israeli population, but Christmas
celebrations are large. I meet up with Susan in a library on an outskirt of
Jerusalem. She leads me to a table on which lays an enormous tome. She invites
me to sit next to her, and she opens the book and I follow along as she spins
an intriguing and complex story of Christmas in Jerusalem, the index finger of
her right hand tracing the lines on the pages like a sightless person reading
braille. Now and then, her head lowers to within mere inches of the book for a
closer look at the ancient, fading text, and a crucifix suspended from a silver
chain around her neck drops forward and drags across the pages. It seems a
confirmation, of sorts.
“The Christmas story took place in Israel,”
Susan reminds me. “But through the centuries, and for a variety of reasons, the
different factions of Christians have not come to a meeting of minds on the
actual date of the birth of Jesus. So you see, Christmas in Jerusalem is not a
one-day affair. Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians celebrate the day on
December 25th. Orthodox Christians do so on January 6th,
and Armenian Christians on January 18th.” Susan implores me to stick
around and partake of an array of dazzling festivities commemorating the
holiday, but by this time, I am more than ready
for crisp air and fluffy snow and a bona-fide traditional Christmas as I recognize
it to be—a Midwest America Christmas of time spent with family and friends, of
sharing food and memories, of gift-giving and receiving amid the ambience of a
gorgeously adorned Christmas tree and sparkly mantel and tabletops aglow in candlelight.
As ever, my Muse reads me and transports me back to my home.
My wise Muse arranges my return trip to be a bit slower than my arrivals had been, to give me time to reflect on all I had experienced. The impression most indelible in my memory is the evidence of Creator’s handiwork in those places, of the sights and sounds and aromas, and in the people and their talismans for good, such as Paulette’s donation basket, Kathryn’s barbecue fork, Aimi’s KFC bucket, Anne’s trees, and Susan’s crucifix. And I wonder now, what’s in store for me on my next go around!?©
Image: CHRISTMAS ON MITHOFF STREET, watercolor painting by Linda Lee Greene
***
Multi-award-winning
author Linda Lee Greene’s GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE POTS, A Spiritual
Odyssey, a blend of visionary and
inspirational fiction with a touch of romance, finds ex-pat American Nicholas Plato
in Sydney, Australia, a relocation that pits him against parts unknown both within
his new home and himself. It is a quest that in the end reveals to him his true
purpose for living. The book is available
in eBook and/or paperback. Just click the following link/URL and it will take
you straight to the page on Amazon on which you can purchase it. https://www.amazon.com/GARDEN-SPIRITS-POTS-SPIRITUAL-ODYSSEY-ebook/dp/B09JM7YL6F/
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