Whereas Christmas is an annual spotlight for many individuals around the globe, naturally in Bethlehem, it’s one thing additional particular. It could actually really feel just like the little city is at all times constructing as much as this vacation. However today, somebody necessary is lacking: my grandmother. Teta Julia really cherished Christmas, an event for thus many issues that she cared deeply about: flavorsome meals, beneficiant hospitality, charitable giving, the preservation of traditions, and, in fact, large household get-togethers.
My grandmother Julia was the principal inspiration for my ardour for cooking as a boy. I spent a whole lot of time at her home, absorbing her busy every day routine. There would at all times be engaging smells and a frenzy of exercise within the kitchen as meals had been ready, usually for company. In the meantime, farmers would name instantly on the entrance door to supply their seasonal specialities: ripe prickly pears, watermelons from Jenin, fats courgettes (zucchini), and finger-length aubergines (eggplant) from Battir.
The times began early, and sometimes by 10 within the morning, my grandmother can be patiently ready on the terrace for a good friend to attend an occasion on the Arab Ladies Union, the place she was one of many founders. To my delight, girls coming to see her from neighbouring villages would usually bear tasty items: candy dibs (grape molasses) from Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah or honey from Ubeidiya, and salty laban jameed (salted and dried yogurt) from native Bedouin communities.
As Christmas approached, my grandparents’ dwelling would bustle excitedly with power. My grandmother had been raised in a house the place Christmas traditions had been massively necessary. That they had been ingrained in her by her father, my great-grandfather, Mattia Kattan, whom she described compellingly in her e-book, Lest We Overlook. Sadly, he died earlier than I used to be born, however I appreciated that he was the well-traveled, multilingual son of a former mayor of Bethlehem, a service provider with retailers in Amman, Haifa, and Jerusalem, who was devoted to his massive household. He was the loving father of eight ladies—an achieved lineup which included each my grandmothers—and one boy.
My grandmother took enormous satisfaction in our metropolis and at all times strove to protect its tales and reminiscences for locals in addition to its many worldwide guests. This will clearly be seen within the Beituna al-Talhami Museum, which was established by the Arab Ladies Union beneath her administration and thru her report of group work. Lengthy earlier than December 24, Christmas Eve for our Catholic household, she and her mates can be knitting sweaters to be despatched as Christmas items to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. There have been at all times charitable fundraising actions and Christmas events for the much less well-off in our group to prepare, too.
My grandmother instilled in all her grandchildren the values of solidarity and philanthropy. My siblings, cousins, and I had been at all times inspired to consider these much less lucky than ourselves, significantly within the run-up to Christmas. We’d make small donations from our pocket cash to native charities, together with the orphanages, in order that the kids cared for there might have a Christmas reward and a festive meal.
Our household’s Christmas preparations have at all times begun in earnest on December 1, the beginning of Creation, which additionally occurs to be my birthday. From this date on, Christmas bushes and decorations are on show, Christmas carols may be legitimately performed, and stacks of Julia’s wealthy Christmas cake begin increase. Funnily sufficient, the recipe for the cake was merely based mostly on an outdated Betty Crocker one, which Teta tailored to incorporate domestically sourced Palestinian substances, including additional cinnamon and nutmeg, moist dates, fleshy dried apricots, and figs. All through December, Teta’s dwelling can be full of this Christmassy odor. Her oven was on nonstop—and the kitchen was transformed right into a mini manufacturing line for her truffles.
I don’t know what number of Christmas truffles Teta would make annually, nevertheless it was quite a bit. Most had been devoured or handed out to family members simply earlier than Christmas. My essential process as an enthusiastic younger kitchen assistant was to cut the dried fruit after which coat the items in flour earlier than including them to the cake combine so they didn’t simply stoop all the way down to the underside of the baking tin. Generally I’d even be trusted to put out all of the lengthy rectangular cake pans and line them with parchment paper whereas my grandmother and her common kitchen helper acquired the cake combine prepared. Lastly, because the truffles slowly baked, we might sit expectantly within the kitchen, maintaining a tally of them. When my grandfather got here dwelling from work, the irresistible aroma would at all times put a smile on his face.
These days, the Israeli state’s development of the segregation wall has marred one of many essential highlights of Christmas celebrations—the procession of church officers from Jerusalem’s Outdated Metropolis to the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. However after I was rising up, massive crowds of joyful Christians, principally from Bethlehem and the encompassing areas, would collect alongside the path to welcome the procession, with the primary clusters at Mar Elias Monastery, on a hill on the fringe of town, and at Rachel’s Tomb, the place many notables would wait. As my grandparents’ home was effectively positioned alongside the route inside Bethlehem, we might congregate there within the entrance backyard on December 24 to greet the Roman Catholic patriarch who heads the convoy and watch the scouts and horses who accompanied him. My grandparents—who had shut relations with the church—had been at all times able to salute the patriarch of the day. After he had handed, we went inside for a grand lunch.
Within the weeks main as much as this occasion, the dialog would revolve round whom to ask to the lunch. My grandmother, the beneficiant hostess, hated to go away anybody out and at all times secretly invited additional company. She would additionally welcome those that had not been invited as we packed inside. By now, the exquisitely adorned Christmas tree can be prepared with items wrapped for everybody in order that for us kids, this was at all times an exhilarating time. Regardless of intensive conversations among the many household about what our lunch ought to contain, the menu was often roughly the identical.
The appetizers had been invariably sfiha (meat-filled flatbreads), sambousek (crispy meat pies), kibbeh (spiced meat and bulgur wheat), and an area salad.
Then my grandmother would make what she referred to as “Oriental rice,” on which she lavished minced meat (floor meat), festive grilled chestnuts, almonds, and pine nuts. This could accompany roasted turkey and a roasted lamb shank in addition to her well-known glazed carrots. Some years, she would go for an entire roasted lamb full of rice and meat. It was at all times an epic meal. On these events, a lot of my family would draw back from the top of the lamb, however Teta would minimize this and quietly serve it to these of us privileged to know the worth of the delicacy and generally to others who had no concept what it was. I’d contentedly tuck into the mind meat, bone marrow, and some other components of the lamb, leaving others to benefit from the leaner however, for my part, much less tasty meat.
I’m eternally grateful that I had such distinctive grandparents and that I used to be in a position to spend a lot time with Teta Julia. She taught me about each Palestinian spice and herb, and most significantly, about Palestinian hospitality, the love of Bethlehem, and the significance of resilience.
Teta’s Christmas lunches, her pièces de résistances, would at all times finish together with her Christmas cake. We had been solely allowed to style it for the primary time on Christmas Eve. There was a ritual wherein she took a cake out of the fridge, the place it could have been saved for 3 weeks, for us to slice it collectively. After a lot anticipation, that first style was at all times a memorable second.
After Teta Julia handed away, the complete household was in denial, however Christmastime was the toughest, the time when her absence was most painful. It took me a number of years to comprehend that I might bake her Christmas cake and share it with the household in her reminiscence, as a tribute to her.
A wonderful Christmas Eve lunch would taper off relatively than finish. Then we might sit round, our stomachs full, sipping Arabic espresso, and our consideration would start to shift to midnight mass. Whereas a lot of the household can be heading to the Nativity Church, the scramble for the sought-after tickets, which had usually begun within the autumn, was off-putting for my grandmother. As a substitute, together with my grandfather and oldsters, she most well-liked to move to the chapel at Bethlehem College, one other eminent native establishment which she had helped to discovered.
