Friday 1 December
4pm Dear Santa
Every year around the first days of December, we put our Christmas tree in its spot and decorate it. Our cats love staying under the tree and playing with the big decoration balls and ornaments. The tree stays until mid-January, until my sister decides it is time to put it away. She says it is to “keep the Christmas joy and spirit, and to feel happy every year”. I am Muslim. Muslims in Gaza love Christmas. Christians and Muslims gather every year to light up a huge Christmas tree in the YMCA centre to celebrate the happy occasion.
I am not sure you received the updated lists of Gaza children, but this year, many children in Gaza are dead. No, Santa, they were not naughty. Angelina Jolie once gave a speech about how difficult it is for her to understand how another woman, who is way more talented than her and has the ability to make better films, is located in a refugee camp, unable to find food for her children and has no voice. Just like that woman, the Gazan children’s only fault was where they were born: in Gaza, facing death, every single minute.
I read once that “the soul is healed by being with children”. Not our children, Santa. Our souls are aching because of being with them. Yesterday, over the phone with my friend who is a mother of two adorable children, she told me that I am lucky not to have any. “My kids are sad all the time, they are cold and they are scared. My son told me he wishes to eat his favourite chocolate one more time before he dies.”
But her children are lucky because they found a shelter over their heads. Many children are in tents during these very cold times, some of them have poor parents who cannot afford to get anything for them. In the past days we had a ceasefire, and we were relieved for a while, but now it is over and the situation is very difficult. Nobody is safe.
This year, if you come to Gaza, and please do, would you change the gifts you bring. I know that you and the elves work all year to prepare them, but the priorities have changed. Don’t bring dolls and bicycles to the children. Instead, bring some blankets, because they are cold. And although I love my friend’s son, don’t bring him his favourite chocolate; bring some food and flour, because children in Gaza are hungry.
Also, can you bring an insulin shot for the woman who has a diabetic son and is seeking one at any price? Can you bring with you milk for our friend’s two-year-old daughter? Can you bottle safety and hope and bring them to our children? And if any is left, to us, the adults, too?
You will not see Christmas trees, not because children stopped believing or welcoming you, but because the trees have been burned as wood to stay warm at night. And there will be no chimneys, so please, look for the schools where thousands are displaced. Look for the tents, there are children in there.
Santa, if you come to Gaza, you will not recognise it. Buildings are gone and places that witnessed happy occasions no longer exist. There is no electricity. Recently, I have been remembering a quote I read years ago in a book entitled The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
“This moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder.”
Will you believe me if I told you that seeing lights over buildings is as equal as realising that I am alive. My friend told me that her biggest dream is for someone to call her and she can say, casually: “I am doing nothing. I am just at my home, chilling.”
This year, everything is being tested: our survival skills, our patience, our faith and our humanity. We are exhausted, terrified and not sure if we will survive. Death is everywhere around us, we don’t have the ability to cry over our loved ones, to hug them one last time or to grieve.
Maya Angelou said: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
The amount of feelings and experiences bottled inside my head, heart and soul could fill this whole world we are living in. Can you imagine the agony all Gazan children, mothers and fathers have right now? How many have already died without even sharing their dreams with the world. How many have lost their futures without having a fair chance to achieve them?
Days ago, I was with the neighbour’s son of the hosting family we evacuated too. We heard about a man who sells wood, so we walked for over an hour to reach him. Since there are no containers or bags to put the wood in, he tied the pieces with a wire to keep them together. On our way, it started raining heavily. The evacuating people, looking for necessities, still wearing summer clothes, were shivering. All of us stood by the side of the road to wait for the rain to be over.
I look at the boy and tell him that I believe in the power of prayer, especially during rain. I ask him to pray for something. Santa, he did not pray for the game he had spoken about for almost an hour with me, nor did he ask for clothes. He said that he prays this whole nightmare will be over, and that he and his siblings will be safe.
I wonder, by 25 December, will this be over? Will I be alive, will I gather with my friends, exchange gifts and sing together Jingle bells?
Sending you love,
from Gaza.
