Chaldean Thoughts

Heavenly Father,

Today, we join hands and hearts to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child.

Let us join the chorus of angels who sing joyously about the coming of our Savior.

May the spirit of Bethlehem and the beauty pf the Nativity inspire us to serve those who seek peace and comfort in our time.

Through Your grace we can embrace the world.

Amen,

Source: Catholic Relief Services

We visited Bronner's Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan on June 2, 2009. This was Mark's first visit to the place and my second. You can say, we enjoyed Christmas shopping in June.

The place is certainly a Christmas wonderland. Here's some pictures to share with you.

God of love and mercy,

in this season of Christmas we offer you our thanks and praise.

We want to spread the word of peace you give us through Jesus Christ.

May the birth of your Son overcome human suffering, calm our fears, and bring peace to our homes, our families and the world.

Amen,

Source: Sacred Heart League

A woman walks into the Post Office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards.

"What denomination?" asks the clerk.

"Oh, good heavens! Have we come to this?" said the woman. "Well, give me 50 Baptist and 50 Catholic and one Methodist."

Source: Comedy Central

I've been very busy at work lately. So, I decided to try an audio book. I can listen to the audio on my way to and from work. It worked well, and I enjoyed the experience.

Dec. 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. According to St. Matthew:

Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

"The Shepherds Prayer" looks at the birth of Jesus from the prospective of the people who witnessed the murder of the innocent children of Bethlehem. The book also sheds light on the faith of the shepherds who followed the star to the manger where Jesus was born.

Both aspects make it a good read for anyone who wants to deeply explore the birth of baby Jesus.

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The Shepherd's Prayer
Audio Book

Being a big fan of Josh Groban, I couldn't resist buying his Christmas music CD. He released it in October 2007.

I'm not into Christmas music. But, Josh's majestic voice can't be resisted. I've been listening to "Noel" since I bought it last month. The more I listen to the songs on the CD, the better they get. It's the best pre-Christmas gift I've bought for myself this year.

---

Josh Groban: Noel

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you enjoy the company of family and friends.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the gingerbread house. So, I went earlier this month to the Very Merry Main Street Market at Beaumont Civic Center. It was fun to watch the kids working hard to build the gingerbread houses. It was more fun to watch the parents take the task very seriously.



Merry Christmas everyone

Last year, Wal-Mart went under a lot of criticism for its refusal to recognize Christmas for what it is. Christmas is Christmas. It's not some other generic holiday.

This year though, Wal-Mart is trying to reconcile with Christmas:

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - It is beginning to look a lot more like Christmas at Wal-Mart.

This holiday season, Wal-Mart isn’t trumpeting big bargains only. It’s also bringing “Christmas” back into its marketing, after several years of playing down the term.
[...]
“We learned a lesson from that. Merry Christmas is now part of the vocabulary here at Wal-Mart,” said Linda Blakley, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.

Read more...

I haven't been to Wal-Mart in long time. I prefer other shops with better shopping atmosphere and products quality.

I was going to write about the difficulties facing Iraqi Christians this year. Then, read Dilnareen's post and thought she's right. Let's forget about war and talk about Christmas during perfect times. I moved my Christmas post from last year here. This way, people new to this blog would have the chance to read about Iraqi-Christians' Christmas traditions.

One thing I noticed, many Iraqi-Christians are turning Christmas into a commercial festival of Santa Claus and gifts exchange. I'm not against dear Santa. He really works hard during Christmas season. But, I like the "Pure Christmas." The Christmas I remember from when I lived in Iraq.

As Fr. Yousif said in his e-mail to me:

In this Christmas, nobody can be more near the first Christmas as the Iraqis. Cold, fear, strangers, but we know the Lord is between us, this is our joy and hope.

Merry Christmas everyone and enjoy the reading.

ORIGINAL POST: 12/22/2003
American Christmas preparations are more simple than Iraqi preparations.

Most Iraqi Christians, Assyrians in special, would fast from December 1st until Christmas day. Almost every year, I fast the week before Christmas. Christmas feels different when I fast. Christmas in the Middle East is more spiritual than the commercial Western Christmas.

For at least two weeks before Christmas in Iraq, Christian families shop for koleicha (Christmas sweets) ingredients. Iraqi Christian women are so proud of their secret recipes to make the best koleicha. Ingredients would include white flour -- French white flour was always the best. Fillings include walnuts, dates and a special kind of filling made of butter, sugar, flour and special spices. Each woman has her own secrets on how to make the best dough for their koleicha and will not reveal it to anyone. Yes, it's a family recipe secret.

Now, you would think our mothers would settle for a pound or two of flour. Hell no. My mom's standard was 20-30 pounds of flour when we were still a big family. After my brothers and sisters left the country, my mom reduced her standard to 7-10 pounds.

To make all this amount of sweets you better have good friends and relatives to help you with your big koleicha day. This is how it works: friends and relatives that you could count on would decide a schedule, so you could help them the day they make theirs in return for their help to you. My task changed from one year to another. I always found the easiest task to do -- like cooking lunch for these hard working women. My mom -- being my mom -- would always keep the cooking sheets for me to clean after all is done. Great. I can't complain anyway.

The next episode is to give a plate of koleicha to your neighbors. If you are working, another plate goes to your colleagues at work. My Muslim friends would get their share too as I WANTED my share during their Eid. The postman and trash collector were always on our list of "who gets koleicha this year?"

This happened every year of my life -- even during worst years of Iran-Iraq war in Basrah. For Iraqi Christians, Christmas is not Christmas if you don't make koleicha.

The few days before Christmas are devoted for cleaning the house and putting up the Christmas tree. This part of Christmas is identical to Christmas in any other part of the world, except we don't exchange gifts. Good plan. You could keep your budget under control during Christmas.

The most popular Iraqi Christian food for Christmas is pascha. Well, this is one other food not easy to make and our mothers would not allow anyone to help them with preparing this meal, another family recipe secret.

Most people would go to the midnight mass, come home and break their fast with eating pascha. I think that's the best part of Christmas, and I really miss it. These masses are very long (about 2 to 3 hours). Me and my sister, who moved to America after she got married, would attend the last mass on Christmas day. This is usually the shortest mass. It has a disadvantage though. You can't eat your favorite pascha until you come back home from church. It is kind of a temptation so you would have something to tell the priest if you ever go to confession on Christmas day.

We have many churches in Iraq where Christian populations are high. In Basrah, we have two Catholic churches, Latins, Syrian Catholic and others have their own churches too. Baghdad has lots of churches as most Christians lives in Baghdad. Mosul, Dehuk, Sulaymania, Arbil and kirkuk governorates have their own share of churches.

Christians make 3% of Iraq's population. The most popular sector is the Chaldean Catholic church, which is a branch of the Roman Catholic Church.

The family usually gathers for Christmas lunch at the parents house. You would invite a family or two that would invite you for next Christmas lunch.

OK, now you think by this we're over with Christmas and could have some rest. No, so far we had "The Fellowship Of The Food". Playing next at a home near you, we have the sequel, "Return of The Christmas Visits".

Every Christmas, the parents would make sure they remember which families visited us first, and which families didn't visit last Christmas and were supposed to visit. People who visit includes best friends, family members, uncles, aunts and sometimes first cousins. This works exactly like Christmas cards work in Western countries. If someone visits you this Christmas, you return their visit this Christmas. If someone didn't visit you last Christmas, you actually don't visit them this Christmas. You have from Christmas day till 6th of January to finish this task.

Let me tell you, this is not an easy task if you have a big family like mine. I used to escape most of this exercise by staying home with my grandma, also to take care of any visitors while my parents are visiting other families.

Christian Iraqis in Australia haven't changed much of these traditions after moving to Australia except that Australian Christmas is during summer and pascha is not a favorable meal for hot weather.

So, anytime you think your Christmas is full of stress, just appreciate not living in Iraq were there are two many things to do.

I love Christmas in Dallas, all I have to do is buy gifts, wrap them, put them under the tree, attend Christmas mass and have dinner with my family-in-law. How hard is that compared to Big Fat Iraqi Christmas.

Have a nice Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah everyone.

A reader sent me this story, published on Reuters web site this morning. It's about the killing of an Iraqi-Christian in Basra, Iraq on Christmas Eve.

I would have never mentioned this article if I didn't feel it's becoming a real concern to most Iraqi-Christians living in Basra. Most of the Chaldean Catholics in Basra worked in the liquor, hotel and restaurant businesses. Most of them had to sell their businesses when Basra's economy started to die at the edge of Iran-Iraq war. At the time, the city became a picture of a German city during WWII.

In Basra and other parts of the country, Christians and Muslims always lived together in peace. To be honest to the old regime, our rights were protected. We didn't have all the rights the Christians have in the Western countries, but we had enough rights to practice our religion without fear of anyone killing us on the streets of Iraq.

I have a feeling the extremist outsiders (not Iraqis) are planting seeds of hatred among different sectors of Iraqi society. Sunnis against Shiias, Muslims against Christians, Kurds against Arabs. This reminds me of what my Lebanese friends told me of how The Civil War started in their country during the seventies.

For Iraqi-Christians, they would not fight or get a revenge. They will just leave the country like they have done for many years.

To the American administration: Please don't let what happened in Lebanon and Yugoslavia to happen in Iraq. Don't let what happened to the Iraqi-Jews many years ago to happen to the Iraqi-Christians now.

Happy New Year everyone.