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| This is the best I can do this year |
Previously, I would have been first to declare that Christmas shits all over Hanukkah. Who wants to light a few candles, when in comparison, your parents buy you a giant sack of presents and pretend that they are from some old trespassing fattie so you don't even have to show gratitude to them. So as a kid I would have been "It's Christmas all the way". However, as an adult I am less convinced. The Ho Ho Hos start earlier every year, and by the time the 24th comes, if I hear another version of Jingle Bell Rock, I'm going to choke somebody with a giant length of red and green tinsel. That crap makes a shocking mess by the way.....especially when it's all mixed up with saliva and a tepid corpse..... Then there's the frantic mass consumption, the people everywhere - mostly in the way of where you want to be. There's nowhere to park when you are doing your last minute shopping for more bullshit nobody will want anyway. You buy and lug home piles of food, and stress about how you're going to cook it so it doesn't suck. Not to mention all the Christmas ads on TV and the radio that make you want to stick a tree-top angel in a random eye because you've heard the same ones over and over since October. And then there's the gangs of drunks in Santa hats......sad, very sad. You wrap presents extremely late into the night on the 24th, and are woken up extra earlier by your kids who have been transitioning from run of the mill psychos into super excited psychos over the course of a month.
And all of this bullshit for one day.
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| Valli gets in the Hanukkah mood in Jerusalem a couple of years ago |
Hanukkah at least goes for eight days - or rather nights. That's eight days of eating jam donuts and chocolate coins and potato pancakes. You can pack on some quality pounds during this time - plus it's winter so you can hide your sins under a muu muu. But...... the whole experience just doesn't seem to go anywhere. The excitement doesn't really build over the eight days. I went down to watch the next giant candle being lit on about the fifth night of Hanukkah and there was no crowd reaction when at last it happened. Not even a measly cheer or a subtle "yay". I didn't even notice it was alight, until 10 minutes after it actually happened. Anti-climax. I like the songs and everything, although of course I can't really join in not knowing the words and all. We did have a Hanukkah song lesson in my Hebrew class though - but being tone deaf and unable to read the Hebrew alphabet does not make for a delightful singalong. I felt really sorry for the people sitting in front of me.
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| Just a touch more sugar kids |
The kids concert and Hanukkah party was great. I liked the whole new experience of it all as well. It was majorly cute - and in my opinion the plight of the Macabees and the songs about light and dark with the use of torches kicked Baby Jesus, the shepherds and the manger big time.
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| The "Hoshe, Or" song at the Hanukkah party |
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| Sevevon Sov Sov Sov |
Now, for all you ignoramus yok scum - that category includes me too so don't worry - I'm going to give you a little Hanukkah lesson in case you have no idea. Forgive me Jewish friends if I'm way off the mark here, but just remember I am a self declared ignorant yok scumbag, so that should let me off the hook.
Many people think of Hanukkah as the Jewish Christmas which is probably annoying. Hanukkah actually has it's roots in revolution against assimilation and happened way before old Jesus popped his head out of the manger. Basically, some Greek bastard - Antiochus - banned the Jews from, well basically being Jews. Not to mention killing them, destroying their temples and basically being a major arsehole. Two rebel groups joined forces - one being the famed Macabees - and together they got their temple back. But they only had enough oil to light their candelabrum for 1 day, which was major bad news, as the flames had to keep on burning all night every night . But the tiny amount of oil, instead of lasting for 1 night, lasted for eight (and by then they had whipped up some more oil). And that oily feat is the miracle of Hanukkah, and also the reason why it goes for 8 days and people eat oily foods - yum. Take it from me, those hot jam donuts are good shit.
Look it's a good story - but how does it compare to a tiny baby being born to a virgin? Now that really is a miracle - if it's true. But frankly I'm sceptical. Does anyone think that perhaps Mary might have had a sneaky roll in the hay, panicked and made up some bullshit story that she was still a virgin so that Joseph would marry her and everyone wouldn't call her a tramp. Joseph would have had to keep backing her to avoid looking like a fool - and then the two of them split town on a donkey so the villagers would stop laughing at them. I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just wondering if anyone ever considered this possibility. Mary might have had to keep going along with it once the lie gained momentum. Once word was out that she was pregnant with God's baby, it would have been too late to say "Actually that was bullshit... sorry everyone - Wise Kings, Angels, Shepherds, Joseph's Mum, it was really me and the pig boy- Sven....we had a few cups of ale, one thing led to another and we got a bit frisky in the barn last March". So she had to stand by the impregnation by God story. Next thing she knows, there are strange dudes in crowns bringing totally unsuitable baby gifts (what? they never heard of a diaper cake and bottle of champers - what the hell is Myrrh anyhow?) and she has to push out the baby with some cows and sheep watching and some annoying little shit going perupa pum pum on a drum and everyone calling Sven's kid the son of God......ooooops. That was one bullshit story that really failed to fade away. Poor Mary, more than 2000 years later and and people are still all over the "miracle" virgin birth.
Anyway, despite my loathing of the Christmas build up - come actual Christmas Day - which is a total non event here, things get a bit gloomy here in Israel. I would kill for a piece of turkey wrapped in tinsel and presented by a drunk dude in a Christmas hat singing "Santa Baby". I remember I had one even more depressing Christmas in Japan, under the fluorescent bulbs of a Japanese classroom, watching a seedy old student of mine showing me how to soap up my body with the cheap shower gel he'd just gifted me with.
That was a low point.
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| Site of The Manger Yo |
The last time I had Christmas here in Israel - 2011- I actually considered going to Bethlehem to get all religious on my own ass in the Church of The Nativity. But when the time came, a midnight Christmas trip to the West Bank with two babies seemed less like a good idea - and more like a total disaster. And it was a good thing we didn't go after all, because that was the year that a giant brawl broke out between the priests of the church, and about 100 of them started belting each other with broomsticks until the Palestinian police had to storm the church and subdue all the crazies with truncheons. Apparently they are brawling all the time there - every time they step a toenail in some part of the church which is controlled by some other religious nuts.
See it for yourself if you like.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RnVfXFd5MU
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| Inside part of the Church |
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| Baby Cordus on the sacred site |
The church itself is pretty amazing. I went there with my sister when Vali and Cordi were 5 months old. It was built in the 6th century, apparently on the site of the famous birthplace of Jesus (or should we say Sven's bastard????). Yes, that's right - the good old hay filled manger. The church itself, is the longest continually functioning church in the world. It is beautiful, and despite my cynicism, it feels magical. Some parts of it are extremely cramped and crowded with pilgrims. If you want to go to the the actual spot in the church where Jesus is said to have popped out, prepare to cop a squashing. There are hundreds of people pushing each other to kiss the ground, and the stone is worn down to a smooth shininess from all those kissing lips over the years - if you have a cold-sore phobia I would avoid bending down for a toungie. Instead I had Cordi stand on it (and I disinfected her feet once I got home). By the way, do you think people would be upset if someone graffiti-ed "Jesus Woz Ere" right on the special spot? After leaving the church it took us an hour to clear the scene. This is because, blocking our path, were two giant busloads of Nigerian pilgrims. Twins are a sign of luck in Nigeria and the crowds around the girls were intimidating to say the least. Possibly a hundred people were trying to get pictures taken with the girls and they were yanked out of our arms and passed around like a couple of chillums at a Indian charis festival.
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| Give me back my kid lady |
Once we retrieved our long lost children we ventured into the old city of Bethlehem where I nearly got arrested for laughing at a CD of Yasser Arafat - I thought it was a compilation of him singing some famous Arabian hits (amusing right?????), when it was actually a CD of his famous speeches. So we fled the riot we created, got back in a Arab taxi, and headed past the wastelands of West Bank poverty and the giant grey wall, where the Israeli border policed waved us back through the check point and onwards to Jerusalem.
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| Wizzie on the run in the West Bank after the Yasser Arafat incident |
So this year we are skipping warring priests, avoiding being stoned for crimes against Yasser and giving a wide berth to anti climatic lunches of falafel and hummus, and are jumping on a plane bound for Vienna. Lights, carols, Santa, eggnog and piles of presents here we come.....Guten Tag Austria, and Happy Christmas everyone......
