It was 10am and we
were ready for the visitors to arrive, but no one came. This year we
decided to have an all-day open house Christmas party on Christmas
Eve for all our local friends. We started at 10am, because one of our
neighbours started work at 11am but in the end, she was unable to
make it.
Is anyone coming?
We were worried that
no one else would come either because of heavy rain. Rain is not such
a common occurrence in Jordan as in the UK and many Jordanians do not
like to go out in the rain unless they have to. Fortunately the rain
eased off and then stopped later in the afternoon.
Is this halal?
The food consisted
of a mixture of traditional English Christmas food (mince pies,
chocolate log roll) and local snacks that we got from the snack bar
on the corner (various types of samosa). Kate found some jars of
mincemeat at one of the supermarkets here. Some of our guests checked
with us that none of the food contained pork and was all halal.
Shoot the
Reindeer
Instead of ‘Pin
the beard on the Santa’ we decided to have a ‘Shoot the Reindeer’
competition. As you can see from all the names and scores, we also
used it for three other parties we did over Christmas time (Isaiah’s
birthday, Kira’s schoolfriends Christmas party and a party for our
British friends here).
Arabic singing
At three points in
the day, people noticed Paul’s guitar and requested to hear him
play, so we sang some of the Arabic songs that we know, and Isaiah
sang an Arabic Christmas carol that he learnt at school.
First ever
Christmas party
Over the course of
the day over 20 people came but at different times, so we were able
to have quality time talking to each of them. Some were friends that
we see regularly, but others were people that we have not seen for a
while, so it was great to catch up with them again. They were all
very interested in finding out more about what we do at Christmas and
why. One of them was shocked to hear that the Jews do not believe
that Jesus was the Messiah. A common misconception here is that
Christians and Jews basically believe the same thing. For most of our
visitors, it was the first time they had ever come to a Christmas
party.
