After Hanukkah, came my favorite season: Advent and Christmas!
I had assumed that, since Christmas isn't a Jewish holiday, it wouldn't be celebrated here, and I was trying to brace myself for a very different Christmas.
Well, I was both right and wrong. It was a very different kind of Christmas, but it turns out that in towns like Nazareth, Haifa, Bethlehem, and even Jerusalem, there are areas of Christmas (or other holiday) festivals and celebrations! The weather also took a turn and became a lot cooler, as rainy season (winter) is here. So for this Georgia girl, it actually felt like Christmas!
The entire month of December, I got to enjoy these festivals, which was so fun. And then for the weekend of Christmas, I had the most different Christmas of all: spending it in Jerusalem, and actually spending Christmas Day in Bethlehem!
It was an incredible weekend, and it was also bit of a juggling game because late Christmas Even and most of Christmas Day were on Shabbat. So my friends and I had to make sure to get there before things closed, and that's why we decided to go to Bethlehem on Saturday. Besides, spending Christmas in Bethlehem... how many people actually get to do that?
And since the borders are currently closed to foreign tourists, thanks to Omicron, that meant there were only local tourists there—a very different from past years. I kept having pinch myself for how amazing it was!
On Christmas Eve, we got to Jerusalem in time to go to the Western Wall before Shabbat began, and then also went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Armenian Quarter after an amazing late lunch/early dinner.
Christmas day, we took a bus from outside the Damascus Gate to Bethlehem. Our bus driver could have qualified for the Fast and the Furious! There was one point where I even closed my eyes, haha. But we made it, then walked to the Church of the Nativity, said to be over the cave that Jesus was born in. The line to see the cave was so long that we just walked around and then started walking to our other destination in Bethlehem: the Shepherds' Fields, also known as the fields of Boaz and Ruth. That was a long walk, so on the way back, I was so thankful to find a taxi!
The day after Christmas, time was short for us. We checked out of our Airbnb, went back to the Temple Mount, and this time we also walked up to the mosque above. That was my first time being up there. I didn't realize how big the area was up top! There's an amazing view of the Mount of Olives too. Leaving the Old City, we went to a busy shuk for spices and then headed out, stopping at the top of the Mount of Olives for a photo of the city.
What an incredible weekend!!!
And honestly, after all of that excitement, and because the week after New Year's Eve is the week of finals in my Hebrew class, I kept the day much lower key—staying in my room, being a happy introvert, haha. So that might be a little bit of a let down to anyone who isn't an introvert, but I loved it. All I needed was my poodle, Annie, snoozing on my ankles. So, just for fun, here's a picture of her from last New Year's Eve:
We are just over a week in, so I'll say it again: Happy New Year!
