Christmas in Yemen

Article

After my previous article about Ramadan in Yemen, I thought you might be interested in also knowing what it is like to experience Christmas in Yemen.

For one, I missed my family and friends back home, and that kinda stinks. But…

It’s actually a little nice! I certainly don’t miss all the lines at the mall and frantic people and secularization. I actually thought I’d go a whole year without seeing a single Christmas decoration, but a nice family here invited me to join them for a Christmas eve program, as well as a Christmas breakfast at their home. So I thankfully accepted their invitation.

The Christmas eve program was nice. It was the first time I attended a big Christian gathering in Yemen. I must say I’ll never forget the call to prayer going off right in the middle of “Joy to the World” drowning out the singing! I found myself feeling strangely distant to it all too. I felt a little like saying, “Why do those funny foreigners sing all highfalutin like that?” before I realized I was one of those funny foreigners. But I still don’t sing like vibrato is going out of style.

I was also a bit occupied taking pictures of the Christmas lights strung all over the place. I love to take pictures of lights at night…especially Christmas lights. Unfortunately more often than not these pictures never come out with my little camera. Oh to have a nice pro DSLR camera with some great lenses. Maybe one day.

As for Christmas breakfast, I’m sorry to say I didn’t take any pictures. But we had a nice time. I invited a couple students from my school and we enjoyed some good conversation.

I can’t end this post without mentioning that my parents did send me a nice package with all kinds of nice holiday cheer. And a whole big bag of granola! Woo hoo!