"Hoping 'Nail Baba' brings you a 'Merry Kiss-Mas'
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
David JUDSON
I've never been quite comfortable with those terms of the Anglo-Saxon world, �the holidays� or �seasons greetings,� that seek to give us an all-encompassing generic salute to the varied rites of December. But I realize I'll get little relief here in Turkey where the month that brings Hanukah, Christmas, Feast of the Sacrifice this year, and of course the New Year's finale has become even more complex. For starters, there are the differences in the rites of Turkey's traditional Christian communities; for the Greek Orthodox �Rum� the important day is the same as generally observed in Europe and the United States, today. Most Armenian gatherings, however, are at the end of the �12 days of Christmas,� that is to say on Jan. 5 and 6, I am told. And then in recent years has come the merger of New Year's into a sort of non-denominational �Noel,� with the man in the red suit repackaged as �Noel Baba,� and wreath-bedecked storefronts wishing shoppers �İyi Noeller� in a would-be secular salute to the turning of the annual calendar. "
More:Hoping 'Nail Baba' brings you a 'Merry Kiss-Mas' - Turkish Daily News Dec 25, 2007