Wikipedia photo |
We started talking and I told them about our Christmas
celebration and our fir tree, thin and puny on branches and ornaments, but high
on spirits. They listened politely but then I realized from the expression on
their faces and the look in their eyes that neither one could relate to the
description that followed. They were
millennial young and recently married.
I told them how we decorated the blue spruce with real
candles, apples, cookies, and home-made shiny paper ornaments, with a few and
rare Bohemian glass ornaments, and how we lit the tiny candles every night for
a few minutes - they were clipped as far to the outside branches as possible to
avoid catching the tree on fire. To mom’s exasperation, Daddy would nail the
base of the tree stand to the parquet floor. A few oranges, apples, and cookies
were hung on each branch with colorful string, and chocolate bonbons and plump
raisins filled home-made cardboard tiny baskets decorated with red and green
crepe paper.
Larger cities decorated a huge tree in the center of town
with colorful lightbulbs and organized a winter carnival with rides on St.
Nicholas Day, December 6. New Year’s Day was a secular holiday decreed so by
the Communist party but Christmas was not really a holiday at all.
People who lived in villages stuck to tradition and
celebrated Christmas. Priests opened the modest and very cold churches for
services on Christmas Eve. I attended services with my aunt Leana who was a
deacon and a cantor. Churches in the mountainous areas were more active so far
away from the prying eyes of communists.
Caroling, donations of food to people less fortunate, and
having an extended family meal to celebrate Christmas was the highlight of our
year. During certain days, we went from
house to house with elaborately prepared plates of food and baskets of goodies for
those less fortunate, widowed, old, or sick.
Villagers learned to care for each other in good times and
bad. They bartered services and things
they had in excess with other neighbors since money was so tight. People
learned to adjust to their communist-imposed poverty in so many creative ways.
My parents, my secret Santa (Mos Craciun), would put a small
food item by my pillow which I would find on Christmas morning – an unwrinkled
apple, a fragrant orange from Israel, a green banana from Greece, or a
bittersweet chocolate bar. Christmas was good for us kids because we were
oblivious to our state in life. We had no idea how hard adults struggled to
make ends meet.
How could I make this well-off American couple understand
that Christmas was a gift of prayer and time to be with the extended family to
share love and abundant food that was otherwise missing the rest of the year?
Nobody can comprehend that an entire nation can be held
hostage for decades and suffer so much in a fight for survival every day to
find food we take for granted here, bread, milk, butter, flour, sugar, rice,
cooking oil, and needful things such as toilet paper, vitamins, and basic
medicines. It is hard to believe when the shelves in America’s grocery stores
are brimming with food.
As Oleg Atbashian said in his book, Hotel USSR, after he legally immigrated to the U.S., he cried when
he saw the abundance surrounding him, not tears of happiness, mind you, but of
anguish for all the unnecessary and cruel pain the proletariat endured for
decades at the hands of communist autocrats who enjoyed making the population
suffer for many generations through constant shortages of food, long lines,
lack of basic necessities like hot water, heat, having to depend on bribes,
black markets, kickbacks, and bartering to survive.
An artist, Atbashian entered an art supplies store in
Manhattan and wrote, “Rows upon rows of shelves brimmed with products that
catered to every artistic need. No gatekeeper was checking permissions, and no
Artists Union card was required to make a purchase… After the first floor, I
went to the second, and then to the third. And then I imagined how different my
life could have been and broke down in tears.”
Americans are so unappreciative of and spoiled by their abundance
created through the hard work of many past generations, that they have no idea
how other people live or that life can be any other way but good. But this
American knows better and my Christmas spirit will always grow inside our Christian
home and in my heart.
Profoundly moving, thank you.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas, Carol!
DeleteIleana, you are correct in stating that Americans are clueless as to how others have been FORCED to live, and they take, for granted, a life that is the envy of others, all over the world. By he way, I have been very busy @ work, & I have issues with my new phone, so I haven't been active online, but I am still engaged. Merry Christmas, to you & yours!
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas, Alice!
Delete