My Christmases Began in Iran
Shaghayegh Hanson
By the time you read this, Christmas will be just over, but surely not forgotten. I confess, I LOVE Christmas! And guess where this love affair started? In Mashhad, Iran, of course. It was at my friend Reza’s house. Everything about Reza was so cool already. His mother was French, they had Western-style furniture, and they had two German Shepherds out in their front yard that acted as if they would tear you from limb to limb until Reza told them to be quiet… and then they turned into teddy bears. On one of my visits to his house, I saw my first Christmas tree—it was covered in lights and adorned with colorful baubles and fake snow. I couldn’t stop staring at it, it was so enchanting!
Reza told me all about Papa Noel, that’s what he called Santa Claus. He showed me pictures and read me a few stories. I was immediately drawn to this old, chubby man with the kind smile and red cheeks. Reza told me Papa Noel could make reindeer fly across the sky and deliver presents all over the world, which is why Reza was hoping to get his present even though he was in Iran that year for Christmas. The only contingency remaining was whether he had been good or not. We debated this subject for quite some time, and concluded it was going to be a nail biter for him.
I went home that night giddy about the notion of a kind man, flying through the sky, to give good children presents. I couldn’t wait for “Reza’s Christmas” to come and to see if he would get something under his tree. I thought he was the luckiest kid in the world to have a Christmas.
By the next Christmas I had moved to London, England. I couldn’t believe I was going to have my very own Christmas—it was so fixed in my child’s memory as “Reza’s Christmas.” I don’t think I have ever been so excited as I was that first Christmas. The buying of the tree, the decorating, the carols, the festiveness and goodwill, the movies and books, and… the visit to Selfridges to see Father Christmas (as the Brits called him). I stood in line nervously, rehearsing what I was going to say to The Man, ready to recount all the ways in which I had been very good all year. When it was my turn to sit on his lap, my heart was pounding out of my chest! He put me on his knee, chuckled softly, looked into my wide eyes, and asked me what I wanted. I froze. I didn’t know we could make specific requests. I blurted out, “Do you remember Reza? Will you be visiting him this year?” I was missing my friend and wanted to be sure he would be getting his gift even though he was still in Iran. The Man chuckled and asked me again what I would like for Christmas. I finally said, “Well, I wouldn’t mind a Monopoly set, if that’s OK with you?”
I went home that night in a trance-like state, feeling so special. And on Christmas morning, my heart skipped a million beats when I saw my present sitting there, under “my” tree, from Father Christmas. Just one perfect gift. I ran into my parents’ bedroom, yelling “He came, he came!” That was enough for me—that he came, that he thought I had been good, and that he had included me in the Christmas tradition even though I was new to it. Christmas was no longer going to be just Reza’s, it would be mine, too.
In the years that followed, as my elementary school friends, one by one, defected from the belief in Father Christmas’ existence, I held out to the bitter end. And the end was bitter. I was cornered in the playground by a group of nonbelievers who told me the whole thing was a big made up story. They told me I was dumb and that I should grow up. I ran to one of my teachers and cried bitterly, declaring, “I know he’s real, I just know it!” She hugged me, wiping away my tears. And when I saw the kind look in her eyes, I suddenly knew it was true, what the other kids had said. My heart sank; I felt sort of betrayed.
I never saw Reza again, but he crosses my mind every Christmastime. I imagine him with children of his own now, having raised them on the same stories he read to me on that Christmas of his. I bet that, just like my children, his came to expect Santa would come to their house no matter what, and they expected to get more than one present under the tree. I do agree with people who say the “spirit” of Christmas has been lost. Who would have thought that a little Iranian girl with broken English would have understood that “spirit” more than most.
