Let's begin with the Christmas party. We decided to have our Christmas dinner on Shabbat night, two days before Christmas because we always do Shabbat dinner!
Our menu: Cornbread covered in dulce de leche made out of goat milk, latkes, Chinese noodles, bread, cheese, applesauce (homemade with cranberries), applesauce from a jar, mashed potatoes with LOTS of butter and sour cream, broccoli and other veggies, a pear pie with whole wheat crust, a berry pie with whole wheat crust, and ice cream!

Missile-toes. |
So when a friend walked in and saw all the decorations and started jumping up and down, screaming "It's Christmas! It's Christmas!" I totally understood the feeling! We, as always, made something so familiar appear in our lives using limited resources and our imaginations. Most of us typically spend the holidays with our families as well, so having that homey-traditional feeling was especially nice.
We lit the hanukiahs, which we have diligently been lighting every night (including adding another yellow post-it to the post-it hanukiah in a friend's apartment). Sang the prayers and sat down to eat!
Guess that's what I get for buying a 3 shekel hanukiah set. |
And we ate. Yes we did.
Happily in a food coma from course number one, we got out the presents! Everyone has been asked to bring one present, wrapped, to dinner. We picked numbers out of a cup and were allowed to either chose a present from the pile or steal a previous person's present. What drama ensued! People sniffing, shaking, analyzing the presents. What wailing when a present with a pretty shape was stolen. Finally, everyone had something in their hands and we began to open the presents. They were great! I received a toy basketball hoop, which we hung up in our living room. It is almost impossible to get a basket! It rocks!
We then ate dessert. Oh my goodness. That is really all that I can say about dessert.
We all melted into a pile on the couches, happily and painfully in deep food comas. We watched a few Seinfeld episodes and, as seems to be becoming a habit, ended up half-falling asleep on the couches/floor/piles of blankets, unable to move until 1 in the morning.
Day Number 2! I woke up in literal pain. Oh my goodness, we had eaten so much!!!!!!
"I can't ever eat again," I informed my roommate. She started laughing at me and I realized that, while I was saying that, I was simultaneously squeezing a huge dollop of carmel sauce onto my finger. There goes that plan...
People slowly trickled back into our apartment and we sleepily moved around the apartment, reading, staring off into space, drinking tea, doing homework. We watched a few episodes of "Two Fat Ladies", a British cooking show which was great. They had a tendency to say, "Now drizzle a bit of olive oil..." while in fact pouring at least half a cup onto whatever they were making. Watching that show made us hungry and we began to piece together snacks out of leftovers. We turned on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, only realizing after it was over that we only had an hour left before we were supposed to be leaving for Bethlehem. Did we have a plan for this trip? Not at all. A few of us had gone before and knew what buses to get on and where a few of the important places were, but we had absolutely failed at planning anything. Boy, do interesting situations arise out of spontaneous trips like that!
Bundled up, we lit the hanukiahs and headed out the door. The wind had been howling incessantly all day and it had begun to rain. Well, really it was pouring. We slanted our bodies against the wind and rain to the bus stop, to wait for the Arab bus to come. While waiting, a friend pulled out his Bible and began to read us the story of Jesus's birth. Two people began to do interpretative dance of the words. Finally, the bus showed up, luckily mostly empty (Arab buses are really more like shuttles, there are about 20 seats on them). The driver just shook his head in amusement at our 10 person group. We sprinted through puddles to catch the Arab bus going to Bethlehem and headed to the back. Cool people sit in the back! The bus, which normally fills with Arabs, was filled with tourists. Most notable was the group of Americans. We forget, or maybe are able to adapt sometimes, how loud and expressive we can be (granted, our friends include people who are not from the States). But, when we come across another group of tourists, usually Americans, a general feeling of resentment comes over the group. It is astonishing though how much louder Americans are than any other tourist. And how entitled! More on that later...
We got off the bus in Bethlehem and were barraged by offers for taxis and shuttles. I have been to Bethlehem once, during the day and with someone who knows it like the back of his hand. It was really pouring rain and the streets were covered in puddles. No one else knew where we were going. Regardless, we decided to walk. Using logic (let's follow the long lines of taxis!), somehow we walked in the right direction. A physicist from Germany heard our "Where are we goings" and took pity on us, guiding us through the back way to Manger Square.
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Very skinny Palestinian Santas walking around, taking pictures with people and passing out flyers for a nearby restaurant. |
I was at the front of the pack, choosing which direction we were walking in for fear of standing around for too long looking indecisive. If you do that in an area with eager storekeepers, you are liable to end up in a store where you will ultimately end up buying something. It is an amazing thing, our American guilt and politeness. Not to mention our inability to say no to a bargain. When a price starts out at 50 and gets moved down to 15 shekels in the span of 30 seconds, there are few people who are not dazzled enough to buy it, regardless of what it is. More on that later...
Waiting to get into the Church of the Nativity. |
Soldiers, regardless of why they are there, are always, always intimidating in large quantities. |
I talked to the man in English until he insisted I practice my Hebrew. Phew, this made things difficult. He began telling me about his "misrad" that was close by, that did wonderful things for the community. I racked my brain for what the word "misrad" meant. It is very similar to "misgad", which means mosque, and I decided to just imagine he was talking about a mosque. "Tov, tov," I replied as he told me about it in very basic words I almost fully understood. All of a sudden we had pulled up to a stone wall that was only illuminated by the car's headlights. "Rega," he said (wait) and hopped out of the van. We were all silent. My companion turned to me and gave me a "Holy shit, what the hell is going on?" look. I shrugged my shoulders and took a deep breath, while trying to imagine what our escape options are. They were bleak, so I squared my shoulders and decided to be calm until something really bad happened. "Where are we?" We asked the Nepalese women. "He wants to show you his office," they giggled. OH! Misrad means OFFICE!

"Put the pamphlets in your bag!" My driver cautioned as we pulled up to the checkpoint. A young, cranky woman with dreadlocks opened the door and harshly began questioning the driver. Her companion, a short, cheerful man wearing a bright silver Christmas hat piped in with funny comments until she turned to him and snapped: "Shnia!" (Wait! I have to work!"). And that was that. Because our driver, who lives on French Hill where we live, had the right license plates (the yellow Israeli ones, not the Palestinian green ones. With the latter, it is horrible to cross the border), we were only at the checkpoint for a few seconds. We didn't even have to open our passports!
Our driver dropped us off at home after the last leg of the journey was spent talking in Hebrew about my life and his. This was accompanied by drawings and words in Arabic, met on my side by wide eyes and apologetic shrugs. He pulled up to the gate of the Kfar and we asked him how much we owed him. But he refused payment. Three times, which I was later informed is the polite number of times to refuse payment in Arab culture. We took his number and headed home.
I wrote a note to a friend and stuck it on his door (you become quite resourceful sans phone). We were supposed to go to Aida, a Palestinian refugee camp (the one I had just visited a week earlier) to hand out candy to the little kids. I woke up to a note slid under my door saying that he didn't want to go anymore, but that I should join him and our other friends for french toast. A few weeks ago, he and I discovered the best french toast place in the world and we have slowly been converting all our friends to its wonderous ways.
I walked into the living room/kitchen, ready to clean up the remnants of the evening. There was a pile of presents. "Hmm," I thought. "A pile of presents." And turned away to begin cleaning. "WHAT! A PILE OF PRESENTS?!" I turned back and saw that it was labeled "To Elisa, from Mom, Rachel and Dad." WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?
My Mom, lovely devious woman that she is, has been in contact with a few of my friends since the beginning of the semester. She sent them Halloween cards. The friend who helped with the Christmas gifts sent her tacky postcards in response. Due to a recipe-sharing chain, she also was able to get their e-mail addresses. She e-mailed my two friends and they picked up the bedspread. Then the one friend bought everything else, wrapped it in Waugh style (in newspaper) and brought it all into the apartment while I was sleeping. The best surprise ever!!!!!

We sleepily rode the bus home. It was a rainy, windy day. Disturbed some of the more conservative people with attempts to imitate accordions. Watched the Hasidic men with the plastic bags covering their hats, run around, trying to avoid the drops of rain. When we got home, most people dispersed to write papers and/or study for tests.
We reconvened later that evening. Berke (look! Eric, I put a friend's name in a post! ) and I were committed to watching the Muppets' Christmas Carol and we wandered around the Kfar, trying to get friends' to watch it with us. We ended up in some friends' apartment (Eric and Carlo's) and Eric taught us how to play hearts. After two rounds, Eric and Carlo were ready to watch The Muppets' Christmas Carol. We pulled out a mattress and blankets and curled up to watch. When the movie ended, we all fell asleep. At 2:00AM, we walked home and went to bed. What a wonderful first half of the holidays!
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