A Different Kind of Christmas
This time of year always brings out memories. Some good (fudge comes to mind, and maybe that 10-speed bike you always wanted and finally got only to rip up your calves as the spiky pedal kept hitting it allll day long), some bad (the annual tree-decorating fight, the year the tree had to come down two weeks early because it was so dry it was a fire hazard), and all evocative (who can turn on the radio, hear "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and not remember the past 30 Christmases in some detail?).
My mind always goes back to Christmases in Iran. I spent Christmas there when I was 8, 9, and 10...which is probably why that is the memory that comes to mind when I let myself daydream. Christmas at those ages is still magical, but you aren't too young at the time to forget much. And, let's face it, Christmas in a small oil-town in the high desert of Iran...well, that is a little different from say, Christmas in New England.
We didn't have Wal-Mart for shopping...we had Mr. Mehta's store. Mr. Mehta's store thrilled for so many reasons...top of the list was that it was in a freestanding building on a major road, not a little booth in the bazaar or on a small by-way (kuchi). It felt very "Western", and therefore, to my small mind, somewhat better (well, in 1968 in Iran, "Western" was used to refer to American toilets as opposed to the traditional Iranian ones, and that made the word "Western" synonomous with "better" to me!) Mr. Mehta was an Indian who ran this most amazing, dark, dusty, crowded and magical store in our little town of Masjed-i-Suleiman. It was better than Wal-Mart because it had Cadbury chocolates in old velvet boxes (the candy was probably ten years old, but the boxes were pretty darn nice--heart-shaped no matter what time of the year it was), old tin trucks that wound up, battery-operated electronics (one year I got a portable record player that played old 45's...no joke, that was high technology for 1970!), older perfume that probably smelled awful, but once again...luxuriously boxed, board games that we had never seen before (Iropoly, and I'm not kidding....the streets of Tehran instead of Atlantic City), and the best part was--he would bargain with you. I remember walking into the cool, dark building and asking him for something for my mother. He would reach up high behind him, blow the dust off some fabulous but ancient box, and show me the assortment of perfumes sparkling within. Magical. No matter that I had never known her to wear perfume (she was allergic)...he would open the box and sweep his hands over the goods and I HAD to have it. Yardley was the brand I most remember...also available in great quantities in the loo on every BOAC flight. Mr. Mehta had enormous dark lips and this way of chewing on his tongue as he spoke the Queen's English that was mesmerizing. He had suggestions for gifts for the whole family (little cheap plastic dolls for my sister, trucks or balls for the boys, and of course... sketchy but deluxe and dusty shaving supplies for my dad to go with the perfume for my mom). One trip, and Christmas shopping was over.
Of course, the real thrill at Christmas time was the hope that my parents had thought ahead and purchased something for us from AMERICA. That would have required a great deal of fore-thought, planning and hiding things in the summer luggage when we got home from leave, and usually it meant "only" that they did bring back American candy for us. I still remember the year we loaded up on American candy and how angry I was at my brother for somehow giving it all away to his friends much before Christmas. I had visions of tootsie pops, Hershey bars, Milky Ways, malted milk balls, sour balls and more...and he left... gum, for me. My mother thought it was sweet that he was so generous with our candy, but I was devastated. That year, our stockings held Iranian sweets (usually bubble gum), Kit Kat bars (before they ever were available in the US) and Cadbury Flakes (which I loved, probably much more than anything American, but it was the THOUGHT of American anything that usually got me).
Mr. Mehta endeared himself to the expat community by always shipping in Christmas trees each year. For some reason, my parents wouldn't consider a fake tree which could have been purchased in the US and shipped to us, in fact, my mother insisted on a real tree every year until she died. That held true in Iran as well. I remember each Christmas piling into the little sedan we drove (no a/c and vinyl seats...in the desert)--to go to Mr. Mehta's store to pick out the tree. It was always chilly, so we got to wear coats for the first time that year...which added to the holiday feeling. He would have 20-30 trees leaning against his back wall and we wandered about, trying to decide. We saw most of our friends there, since there weren't exactly tree lots on every dusty road in MIS during Christmas. My mother and big brother would never pick the prettiest one (none of them were particularly attractive...I think they were trucked in from Russia and were pretty scraggly by the time they arrive in MIS). And, why were they in charge anyway? I got heartily tired of the phrase "Charlie Brown tree", but that is what we got every year. Honestly, even when we moved back to the US, and later...in Norway of all places...we had "Charlie Brown trees". My dad would laugh at the crooked trunk, my mom would make him face the worse bald spot toward the wall, and my siblings would cheerfully cover it with (to me) hideous home-made ornaments. I dreamed of a magazine-cover tree when I was grown, but somehow, we still have the Charlie Brown tree and the (now-beautiful) hand-made ornaments are my favorite and most-cherished ones. (Unless made by me...then they are banished).
I had one last almost-Christmas in Iran when I was 14. It was 1974, and we had just spent a few months in another small Iranian town while my dad worked for the biggest copper company in the world. This year, we weren't going to stay for Christmas Day in Iran...we were heading home to California to spend it with family. My mom had decided that my brother and I needed to actually be in school (party-pooper that she was--too bad she had never heard of homeschooling) instead of hanging out all day in the bazaar, and we were going home to stay in sunny Florida while my dad would return to the mines and all that entailed (bad food, cold accomodations, missing his family) after the holidays. We left Rafsanjan on a chilly day, and spent the night in Tehran prior to a morning flight to London and then home. The taxi driver mentioned it "might snow". I had never really seen snow and I decided to pray feverishly for a real blizzard. The weather was icy cold and my mother took us shopping for real Iranian sheepskin coats. I remember walking, crunch, crunch on the icy sidewalks of Tehran, next to the iced-over jubes, feeling very chic. They were beautiful and embroidered and oh-so-warm--and not properly "tanned". (note: there is something about properly tanning sheepskin that removes the smell of "the herd"--this is good information, believe me.) We wore them proudly to the airport the next day...as the snow fell all around us. My prayers were answered, and how. There was a full-on blizzard...in fact, the two taxis taking us to the airport crashed into each other at one intersection. I'm not sure what it cost my father in "tips" to get the cars on the road and moving again, but there was a lot of gesturing and American money changing hands.
My mind always goes back to Christmases in Iran. I spent Christmas there when I was 8, 9, and 10...which is probably why that is the memory that comes to mind when I let myself daydream. Christmas at those ages is still magical, but you aren't too young at the time to forget much. And, let's face it, Christmas in a small oil-town in the high desert of Iran...well, that is a little different from say, Christmas in New England.
We didn't have Wal-Mart for shopping...we had Mr. Mehta's store. Mr. Mehta's store thrilled for so many reasons...top of the list was that it was in a freestanding building on a major road, not a little booth in the bazaar or on a small by-way (kuchi). It felt very "Western", and therefore, to my small mind, somewhat better (well, in 1968 in Iran, "Western" was used to refer to American toilets as opposed to the traditional Iranian ones, and that made the word "Western" synonomous with "better" to me!) Mr. Mehta was an Indian who ran this most amazing, dark, dusty, crowded and magical store in our little town of Masjed-i-Suleiman. It was better than Wal-Mart because it had Cadbury chocolates in old velvet boxes (the candy was probably ten years old, but the boxes were pretty darn nice--heart-shaped no matter what time of the year it was), old tin trucks that wound up, battery-operated electronics (one year I got a portable record player that played old 45's...no joke, that was high technology for 1970!), older perfume that probably smelled awful, but once again...luxuriously boxed, board games that we had never seen before (Iropoly, and I'm not kidding....the streets of Tehran instead of Atlantic City), and the best part was--he would bargain with you. I remember walking into the cool, dark building and asking him for something for my mother. He would reach up high behind him, blow the dust off some fabulous but ancient box, and show me the assortment of perfumes sparkling within. Magical. No matter that I had never known her to wear perfume (she was allergic)...he would open the box and sweep his hands over the goods and I HAD to have it. Yardley was the brand I most remember...also available in great quantities in the loo on every BOAC flight. Mr. Mehta had enormous dark lips and this way of chewing on his tongue as he spoke the Queen's English that was mesmerizing. He had suggestions for gifts for the whole family (little cheap plastic dolls for my sister, trucks or balls for the boys, and of course... sketchy but deluxe and dusty shaving supplies for my dad to go with the perfume for my mom). One trip, and Christmas shopping was over.
Of course, the real thrill at Christmas time was the hope that my parents had thought ahead and purchased something for us from AMERICA. That would have required a great deal of fore-thought, planning and hiding things in the summer luggage when we got home from leave, and usually it meant "only" that they did bring back American candy for us. I still remember the year we loaded up on American candy and how angry I was at my brother for somehow giving it all away to his friends much before Christmas. I had visions of tootsie pops, Hershey bars, Milky Ways, malted milk balls, sour balls and more...and he left... gum, for me. My mother thought it was sweet that he was so generous with our candy, but I was devastated. That year, our stockings held Iranian sweets (usually bubble gum), Kit Kat bars (before they ever were available in the US) and Cadbury Flakes (which I loved, probably much more than anything American, but it was the THOUGHT of American anything that usually got me).
Mr. Mehta endeared himself to the expat community by always shipping in Christmas trees each year. For some reason, my parents wouldn't consider a fake tree which could have been purchased in the US and shipped to us, in fact, my mother insisted on a real tree every year until she died. That held true in Iran as well. I remember each Christmas piling into the little sedan we drove (no a/c and vinyl seats...in the desert)--to go to Mr. Mehta's store to pick out the tree. It was always chilly, so we got to wear coats for the first time that year...which added to the holiday feeling. He would have 20-30 trees leaning against his back wall and we wandered about, trying to decide. We saw most of our friends there, since there weren't exactly tree lots on every dusty road in MIS during Christmas. My mother and big brother would never pick the prettiest one (none of them were particularly attractive...I think they were trucked in from Russia and were pretty scraggly by the time they arrive in MIS). And, why were they in charge anyway? I got heartily tired of the phrase "Charlie Brown tree", but that is what we got every year. Honestly, even when we moved back to the US, and later...in Norway of all places...we had "Charlie Brown trees". My dad would laugh at the crooked trunk, my mom would make him face the worse bald spot toward the wall, and my siblings would cheerfully cover it with (to me) hideous home-made ornaments. I dreamed of a magazine-cover tree when I was grown, but somehow, we still have the Charlie Brown tree and the (now-beautiful) hand-made ornaments are my favorite and most-cherished ones. (Unless made by me...then they are banished).
I had one last almost-Christmas in Iran when I was 14. It was 1974, and we had just spent a few months in another small Iranian town while my dad worked for the biggest copper company in the world. This year, we weren't going to stay for Christmas Day in Iran...we were heading home to California to spend it with family. My mom had decided that my brother and I needed to actually be in school (party-pooper that she was--too bad she had never heard of homeschooling) instead of hanging out all day in the bazaar, and we were going home to stay in sunny Florida while my dad would return to the mines and all that entailed (bad food, cold accomodations, missing his family) after the holidays. We left Rafsanjan on a chilly day, and spent the night in Tehran prior to a morning flight to London and then home. The taxi driver mentioned it "might snow". I had never really seen snow and I decided to pray feverishly for a real blizzard. The weather was icy cold and my mother took us shopping for real Iranian sheepskin coats. I remember walking, crunch, crunch on the icy sidewalks of Tehran, next to the iced-over jubes, feeling very chic. They were beautiful and embroidered and oh-so-warm--and not properly "tanned". (note: there is something about properly tanning sheepskin that removes the smell of "the herd"--this is good information, believe me.) We wore them proudly to the airport the next day...as the snow fell all around us. My prayers were answered, and how. There was a full-on blizzard...in fact, the two taxis taking us to the airport crashed into each other at one intersection. I'm not sure what it cost my father in "tips" to get the cars on the road and moving again, but there was a lot of gesturing and American money changing hands.
The airport was packed with people trying to leave on the last flights out before the blizzard closed it down. I held on to my siblings, and followed my dad as he worked his way through the crowds, found a flight, handed over some sort of "tip" and got us on. I do remember the looks on fellow passengers as my mother and sister and I walked on board that crowded flight in our chic coats. The coats, which didn't smell AT ALL in the freezing snowy outside--smelled like a flock of sheep in the warm cockpit. Um, dirty sheep. Somehow, that also seemed Christmas-y (think "First Noel"), but I don't think the passengers appreciated it. The flight attendants asked for the coats and put them somewhere far, far away. I believe it is referred to as "check your bags at the gate"...only this time it was "check your smelly outer garments at the gate." I never really wore my coat again, but doggone it, my mother had paid good money for those coats and we took them all over the world with us for the next ten years....until finally, I think one of our dogs DID eat one.
That Lufthansa airplane was the last flight out that day, and in fact, about an hour later...the airport roof collapsed. We read the headlines as we breakfasted in London the next morning.
Christmas in Iran was followed by Christmas in Cocoa Beach (going to the beach and working on a tan on Christmas Day--also the 10-speed-bike and ripped up calves incident), Christmas in San Diego (lots of cousins), Christmas in Norway (magical), Christmas in Jakarta (biggest tree ever...where was Charlie Brown that year?), Christmas in Connecticut (picture perfect), and Christmas (lots and lots of them) in Texas. I kinda like it anywhere. Thank you God, for sending Jesus.
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