"Christmas"
Since the start of law school, a chapter I closed earlier this year, my Christmas list has had one item on it: a job. (I also hope for Amazon.com giftcards). This year is no different. While I’m employed at the moment with a job that I love, my contract ends in May and there is no chance for renewal. Now, instead of sugar plum fairies, visions of fulltime employment dance in my head.
To many of my friends recently finished with, or about to finish, school, the desire for employment is all consuming. What is different from many of my classmates is that my Christmas wishing is going on in a Muslim country far away from home. While I’ve spent Christmas out of the country before, this year seems strikingly different. The lack of Christmas culture, Christians generally, and family puts a much different feel to this year’s Christmas.
To many of my friends recently finished with, or about to finish, school, the desire for employment is all consuming. What is different from many of my classmates is that my Christmas wishing is going on in a Muslim country far away from home. While I’ve spent Christmas out of the country before, this year seems strikingly different. The lack of Christmas culture, Christians generally, and family puts a much different feel to this year’s Christmas.
That isn’t to say there aren’t signs of Christmas in Pristina. Holiday logos like Santa, fake Christmas trees, and Santa hats are readily available at the stands on the seasonally lit Mother Teresa Boulevard or at the “Disney Shoop” toy shop below my apartment. Even the photo lab around the corner from my apartment set up a street-side, Christmas wonderland complete with a bench, no fewer than two Santa Clauses, and a bevvy of displeased Mrs. Clauses all dancing to AlbanianTurbo Folk and smoking cigarettes. In another part of town, there is a rebar dome wrapped in pink cellophane that is ostensibly Christmas themed on account of a sign near it that says “North Pole”—signs aren’t everything though, as this dome has another sign that says “Star Wars”. Christmas themed or not, when a bleary eyed Santa leers out from this artificial polyp while a guy in a Goofy costume dances to Ke$ha, you begin to think that the Mayans had it right and that this was the end of the world bedlam their calendar predicted.
Beyond these Dada inspired festivities, what is different about Christmas this year is that these venerable symbols of Christmas’ present are hollow without the cultural hubbub of actual Christmas. For the most part, my Muslim Albanian neighbors use these symbols to celebrate the New Year. A billboard I passed today on the way home had red ornaments in the shape of a Christmas tree wishing me a Happy New Year. Even the light up Santa hat for sale at the stall market—a staple of Christmas chicanery—has printed on it, “Gëzuar Vitin e Ri!” (“Happy New Year”). No undertones of a virgin birth to be sure.
This isn’t to say that Christmas in a traditional sense is universally under the radar. My local friends have offered me the warmest holiday wishes. I have received emails from colleagues and professional acquaintances wishing me and my family only the best for Christmas. I have no doubt these are heartfelt; however, it isn’t as if they ever asked my religious affiliation. I like to imagine the reaction if I were to tell them that I appreciated their email, but I’m in fact Serbian Orthodox—which I’m not—and that my Christmas will take place in January in the Serb enclave of Gračinica just outside of Pristina. I think the most succinct reaction would be betrayal followed by a hate crime.
Joking aside, I’m a bit thrown off by my reaction to Kosovo Christmas. For years, I’ve told my mom that having a tree and other Christmas trappings at home doesn’t matter to me, just as long as she gets time off of work to hangout and go cross-country skiing. In the absence of my family, December 25th felt unfulfilled. To be certain, I’m the one to blame for choosing to live so far away during the most tightknit time of the year. The Christmas deprivation chamber that is Pristina hit home the need for family, especially when the community around you isn’t in the same festive mood as was the case last year in Vienna.
To make up for this lack of Christmas in Kosovo, Laura and I held a small party for other Christmas refugees that didn’t make it home for the holiday. It included staples like homemade eggnog, spiced wine, and a plethora of sweets. And on Christmas morning Laura and I enjoyed the gifts under our three Euro tree that Laura’s dad sent to us. It certainly gave the ambiance of Christmas. Alongside homemade cinnamon rolls, a Tashea family tradition, we opened our gifts—trading off opening them one at a time.
But this moment in time wasn’t followed up by Jimmy Stewart yelling about how it was a wonderful life on TV, the city didn’t pause for the holiday like it did for Bajram, and there wasn’t any family to visit. In Pristina, Christmas was an improbable thing. Without the comfortable facets of Christmas taking up the rest of our day and being surrounded by bits of torn up paper, I realized with all of the differences in this year’s Christmas, two things remained self evident: 1. The holidays are forever about family; and 2. Come May, we both still need jobs.
Beyond these Dada inspired festivities, what is different about Christmas this year is that these venerable symbols of Christmas’ present are hollow without the cultural hubbub of actual Christmas. For the most part, my Muslim Albanian neighbors use these symbols to celebrate the New Year. A billboard I passed today on the way home had red ornaments in the shape of a Christmas tree wishing me a Happy New Year. Even the light up Santa hat for sale at the stall market—a staple of Christmas chicanery—has printed on it, “Gëzuar Vitin e Ri!” (“Happy New Year”). No undertones of a virgin birth to be sure.
This isn’t to say that Christmas in a traditional sense is universally under the radar. My local friends have offered me the warmest holiday wishes. I have received emails from colleagues and professional acquaintances wishing me and my family only the best for Christmas. I have no doubt these are heartfelt; however, it isn’t as if they ever asked my religious affiliation. I like to imagine the reaction if I were to tell them that I appreciated their email, but I’m in fact Serbian Orthodox—which I’m not—and that my Christmas will take place in January in the Serb enclave of Gračinica just outside of Pristina. I think the most succinct reaction would be betrayal followed by a hate crime.
Joking aside, I’m a bit thrown off by my reaction to Kosovo Christmas. For years, I’ve told my mom that having a tree and other Christmas trappings at home doesn’t matter to me, just as long as she gets time off of work to hangout and go cross-country skiing. In the absence of my family, December 25th felt unfulfilled. To be certain, I’m the one to blame for choosing to live so far away during the most tightknit time of the year. The Christmas deprivation chamber that is Pristina hit home the need for family, especially when the community around you isn’t in the same festive mood as was the case last year in Vienna.
To make up for this lack of Christmas in Kosovo, Laura and I held a small party for other Christmas refugees that didn’t make it home for the holiday. It included staples like homemade eggnog, spiced wine, and a plethora of sweets. And on Christmas morning Laura and I enjoyed the gifts under our three Euro tree that Laura’s dad sent to us. It certainly gave the ambiance of Christmas. Alongside homemade cinnamon rolls, a Tashea family tradition, we opened our gifts—trading off opening them one at a time.
But this moment in time wasn’t followed up by Jimmy Stewart yelling about how it was a wonderful life on TV, the city didn’t pause for the holiday like it did for Bajram, and there wasn’t any family to visit. In Pristina, Christmas was an improbable thing. Without the comfortable facets of Christmas taking up the rest of our day and being surrounded by bits of torn up paper, I realized with all of the differences in this year’s Christmas, two things remained self evident: 1. The holidays are forever about family; and 2. Come May, we both still need jobs.
