25December2013 Quickshot: Another Tradtion

Another family tradition is a HUGE country breakfast on Christmas morning.  Here's the before.  Everyone was too miserable to take an after.  Merry Christmas everyone!

24December2013 O' Christmas Tree

It's easy to come across as a know-it-all.  I mean we blog for heaven's sake so clearly we must know something!  Right?  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Rather this site is more about relating our learning along the way, and usually poking fun at ourselves, than expressing we've got anything down pat.  

Take the Christmas tree pictured above for example.  Recently some refugee friends visited and after sufficient oo'ing and ah'ing over our decorations, we were feeling very Martha Stewart-ish,  Then came the question, "Why do Christians put up this tree?"  It was an innocent inquiry, unlike the ones we ask about their customs or traditions, but it caught me flat footed.  I looked at D, she looked at me.  There was hemming and hawing, ehs and uhs, and finally I rested on "zay hek," which roughly translates, "That's just how it is." or even rougher, "It is what it is."  Basically I told them it was just a tradition which they accepted and we moved on.  

Since then I've done some research on why we do in fact deck the halls with boughs of holly.  Apparently a lot of people want to know why because there's tons of information on the webosphere about it.  Most of the Christiany-type site point to the tree of life from the garden of Eden to Jesus being the tree of life to green being the color of life.  Maybe these things are true, I don't know, but I do know it would be nearly impossible for me to explain this in English, much less Arabic.  So, I'm sticking with my answer.  "It is what it is."  An old tradition.  They get that.