CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD
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.
 |
Seven Sisters
acrylic painting by Linda Lee Greene |
Paulette
welcomes me into her kitchen and then very graciously explains 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 thaw me out, 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.
 |
Christmas on Mithoff Street
watercolor painting by Linda Lee Greene |
“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!
Readers
were introduced to American Nicholas Plato in multi-award-winning author Linda
Lee Greene’s A Chace at the Moon, which was published in 2019 and is available
for purchase at Amazon.
Greene takes readers on yet another adventure of
Nicholas’ whirlwind life in her
Garden of the Spirits of the Pots, A Spiritual
Odyssey. In this sequel, Nicholas shows up in Sydney, Australia. The principle
plotline unfolds as on one Saturday of sightseeing he gets lost in Australia’s
forbidding yet alluring outback, and there he happens upon a pintsized hut on a
lonely plot littered with hundreds of clay pots of every size and description.
Driven by a deathly thirst, he stops. A strange little brown man materializes
out of nowhere and introduces himself merely as ‘Potter’ and welcomes Nicholas
to his ‘Garden of the Spirits of the Pots.’ Although Nicholas has never laid
eyes on Potter, the man seems to have expected Nicholas at his bizarre
habitation and displays knowledge about him that nobody has any right to
possess. Just who is this mysterious Aboriginal potter?
Although
they are as mismatched as two persons can be, a strangely inevitable friendship
takes hold between them. It is a relationship that can only be directed by an
unseen hand bent on setting Nicholas on a mystifying voyage of self-discovery
and Potter on revelations of universal certainties.
A
blend of visionary and inspirational fiction with a touch of romance, this is a
tale of Nicholas’ journey into parts unknown, both within his adopted home and
himself, a quest that in the end leads him to his true purpose for living.
Garden of the Spirits of the Pots is available in eBook and/or paperback on Amazon.
Multi-award-winning author and artist
Linda Lee Greene describes her life as a telescope that when trained on her past reveals how each piece of it, whether good or bad or in-between, was necessary in the unfoldment of her fine art and literary paths.
Greene moved from farm-girl to city-girl; dance instructor to wife, mother, and homemaker; divorcee to single-working-mom and adult-college-student; and interior designer to multi-award-winning artist and author, essayist, and blogger. It was decades of challenging life experiences and debilitating, chronic illness that gave birth to her dormant flair for art and writing. Greene was three days shy of her fifty-seventh birthday when her creative spirit took a hold of her.
She found her way to
her lonely easel soon thereafter. Since then Greene has accepted commissions
and displayed her artwork in shows and galleries in and around the USA. She is
also a member of artist and writer associations.
Visit Linda on her blog and join her on Facebook. Linda loves to hear from readers so feel free to email her.
