Christmas | Cultural Glimpse

January 8, 2015

Iraqi Children Receive Christmas Gifts

This morning I received an email from Shlama Foundation telling me what my and others’ contributions were spent on. With a combined $680 donation, the foundation was able to deliver 550 Christmas gifts to displaced children on December 29^th.

On one hand, that brought a smile to my face. On the other hand, I thought, “I should have donated more than a hundred dollars.” My children received a number of unnecessary gifts for Christmas, many of which they used for only a day or two. We should have used that money to give to the Iraqi children. Such an act would have been more rewarding and my children would have learned a valuable lesson about the job of giving.

Shlama Foundation was founded in August 2014, after tens of thousands of Christian Iraqis fled ISIS and were forced to live in refugee camps in the Kurdistan region. One of the founders, Noor Matti, lives in Iraq. He had come to Michigan when he was six years old. As an adult, he applied to pharmacy school and was accepted, but decided instead to return to Iraq.

Shlama means “peace” and the foundation has established a secure system that not only shows where the money went, but creates a relationship between donor and recipient. On their website, a spreadsheet shows the name of the donor, the amount given, and a link to a YouTube video that portrays how and for whom the money was used, with photos of the receipts. In each video, the recipients express their situation, thank the donor by name and address how the money has touched them.

I interviewed the members of this organization last year, during which time Matti told me his feelings about the situation in Iraq. “Better days are ahead,” he said. “As a nation, we hit rock bottom. So, there’s nowhere to go but up.”

Learn more at Shlama.org

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December 28, 2014

Winter Wonderland at the Ford House

Playhouse – A gift from her grandmother Clara, it was built in 1930 for Josephine’s seventh birthday. The house contains miniature furnishings in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and sitting room.

Last night we went with friends and family on a Winter Wonderland tour and stroll of the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House grounds. It was a lovely night, filled with the magical feeling I always experience when I enter this beautiful 87 acre estate that was built in 1929.

Edsel was the son of Henry Ford and an executive at Henry Ford Company. He was married to Eleanor and they had four children – three sons and one daughter, all of whom are now deceased. His grandchildren are still alive, and every so often they come to visit the estate, during which time it becomes closed to the public.

Edsel Ford died in this house in 1943 and his wife Eleanor lived there until her death in 1976. It was her wish that the property be used for “the benefit of the public.” So today this house is not only open to the public for guided tours, but also has wonderful programs that the whole family could enjoy, such as the Winter Wonderland, where we strolled under a canopy of twinkling lights, listened to carolers and folktale storytelling while sipping hot chocolate around a fire, and visited with Mr. and Mrs. Santa Clause who are still working although Christmas Day has passed.

Inside, we saw how the house got decorated during the holiday season. Original ornaments that the Fords used from the 1930s were hung on trees. One tree had elongated purple ornaments which Eleanor wanted but could not find anywhere, so she had the Ford Company make them for her. We wandered from room to room, listening to the sound of live musicians play soft Christmas music while tour guides filled us in with stories of the family.

One story I particularly enjoyed was the one about the painting hung on the dining room wall.

“Who is this painting of?” I asked the tour guide.

“This was Edsel’s favorite painting, because it reminded him so much of Eleanor,” the woman said. “Sometimes, when the two of them were dining alone, they would sit right here – ” she pointed to two 18^th Century Queen Anne-style chairs. “So he could see that painting every time he looked up.”

My friend and I were in awe, my friend complaining under her breath that they don’t make men like this anymore.

Seeing our expressions, the woman smiled and added, “They had a very good relationship. A very good one.”

This would explain why Eleanor, after Edsel’s death, remained single for the next 33 years, until she joined her husband once again, and why this house today is still full of life.

January 29, 2013

Christmas is Officially Over

Schools were closed today due to the weather. I found this out at 5:31 am when I got a call with an automated message. Afterwards, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I ended up waking up late and even though I got some writing done, the background noise of Spongebob and Patrick, Dora and Diego, and “mom, I want this and that” got to be too much.

Shortly after my husband came home, I escaped with my laptop. I decided to go to McDonald’s since it’s right around the corner and a lot of people study there now-a-days. A woman around my age initiated a conversation. She is four classes away from getting her master’s degree and she only started going to college in 2005, when she was working full-time, had an eight-year-old son, and was a single mom. Her son is now 16 years old and she said that growing up in an environment where the two of them studied side by side was a very healthy experience for him. He’s very much ready for college already.

I felt better by the time I left McDonald’s. I came home and decided to finally take down the Christmas tree which my kids have begged me to keep in the living room. I tried to tell my son that it’s no longer Christmas, to which he responded, “Then why is there still snow, mamma?”

Until now, he often has me play Christmas songs in the car, although recently I’ve been firm about listening to my audio book – Michael Moore’s memoir “Here Comes Trouble.”

Christmas is officially over in my house, and the house is so quiet that I don’t want to go to sleep and miss out on the beauty of its silence.

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January 1, 2013

Happy New Year

It’s 3:30 am. I finally have a chance to sit down, drink a fresh cup of coffee, a caramel drizzle, and to write my very first post. My in-laws left a few hours ago, but I could not leave the house a mess and go to bed. We had a few unexpected guests tonight. Unexpected guest number one is a cousin who happens to not get along with unexpected guest number two. Needless to say there was a little bit of drama, but that’s expected in any home let alone a Middle Eastern one.

I made the appetizers, my husband made a wonderful barbecue and my in-laws brought over a lot of food like stuffed grape leaves and saffron rice with lamb. Much preparation went into the dishes, but it was nowhere near what it takes to make pacha, a traditional Iraqi dish usually made during the holidays. Pacha is made from sheep’s head, trotters and stomach; all boiled slowly and served with bread sunken in the broth. The stomach lining is filled with rice and lamb and stitched with a sewing thread. The brains and tongues are considered the best parts. The eyeballs are a delicacy. Every Christmas, my sister-in-law spends three days preparing pacha and then on Christmas afternoon my family and I go to have a pacha lunch and exchange presents. As a child, I never understood why grown ups savored pacha so much, but now I do – although I won’t eat any brains, tongues or eyeballs. When I visited my cousin in Germany, he made a pot of pacha – eyeballs and all – but told me he had gone to a farm an hour away to get the ingredients because it was illegal to sell them in the regular market.

It’s nearly 4:00 am. My coffee cup is almost empty. It’s time to say goodnight.

Tag: Christmas