Chapter 11

Before Christmas, I had anticipated that after the day, I'd be writing about a consumption-free holiday passed. I would venture into the future as an enlightened critic of the holidays and consumerism. I would click my tongue and shake my head at the mention of Christmas trees and presents.

And I think these early thoughts were fair. I'm in a country where not many people (except those in the tourism industry) know when Christmas is celebrated. School's still in session on that day, but if you're an exchange student, you're given a couple of days off to enjoy celebrating far away from home. As a result, I didn't expect Christmas, in any of its culturally different forms, to make much of a cameo.

We opted to spend the holidays in a cave. The literalness of being in a cave on Christmas seemed translate into some kind of metaphor. Or we hoped it would. Maybe one of rebellion. Or shelteredness. Or the deprivation of wasteless consumption.

If our balloon pilot that morning stood for anything, he was an indication that you can run and float away, but you can't actually hide.

Except maybe in a cave.

Which we did.

To our dismay, Christmas lights and trees were the only thing that filled the empty streets of Goreme with life. On the balloon, boxes of Turkish delight were passed out as gifts by a bearded Santa (or Baba Noel), although to his credit, he was actually Belgian. Shouts of 'Merry Christmas!' came from shopkeepers and lonely restaurant owners, and our server where we had our 'Christmas breakfast' greeted us warmly on our holiday.

So it found us.

But, as Hilary is telling me right now, I didn't really want to get away from Christmas. There are certain things that still make the season a great time- going back home for Christmas has always been a highlight, the weather, the food- none of this is stuff I'd be glad to get rid of. What we really wanted to experience was how much of the world viewed it- as just another day.

And in the end, that's how it felt. Sure, we belted out a painfully tone-deaf version of Jingle Bells as we floated hundreds of meters into the sky. But nothing clicked that it was actually Christmas.

So we got what we wanted.

On a more interesting note, we found out why there are so many trees, and little Santas on the branches as decoration. All of the paraphernalia is shipped in to celebrate the New Year, which, to them, is the main reason for celebration at this time of the year.

The original Saint Nicholas, or Nicholas of Myra, was from an area near Antalya. Since this falls into present-day Turkey, they see Saint Nicholas as being Turkish. And if you believes he comes from your area, you ought to have a fair claim to exploiting him for commercial purposes. So Saint Nicholas, or Baba Noel comes to bring presents for Turks on New Year's. Which saves him from about 80 million people on Christmas eve. Although the one thing that still doesn't make any sense is why he dresses exactly like the Coca-Cola Santa. C'mon- really? Let's be a bit more original...



The pictures of the holiday season can be found on Flickr