It is difficult to describe just how dull Christmas day can
be for the little Muslim children of America’s ‘burbs. Time creeps to a sloth’s pace as one
waits for friends to finish their revelry, and for shops and markets to open
once more. To pass the time, I would faithfully watch the misadventures of Ralphie in A Christmas Story, besotted with the Red Ryder BB Gun, his heart’s
sole desire.
No longer a resident of the suburbs, I now live in the one
city of the world that lights its shops and plies its trade, come holiday, hell
or high water. But the great
blizzard of 2010 trapped all New Yorkers indoors for a period of three endless
days, during which time little was playing on television save this classic
flick. Three successive viewings
of the film played in the background as I read feverishly for a comprehensive
exam in Islamic travel literature and paced the apartment in which I was
literally trapped. By the time I
got to a passage about Baghdadi ‘Abbasid travelers so heavily bundled in layers
as they prepared to travel north to the frontier edges of dar al-Islam that they
could no longer walk nor mount their rides, I looked up to catch a glimpse of
the classic scene of Ralphie’s brother so smothered in puffy zippered warm things
that he could no longer move the arms distended on either side of his
snowsuits.
I had to laugh at this
weird nexus, but it was strange enough that I firmly resolved not to watch A Christmas Story again for at least a
couple of years.
Christmas time is upon us again, and my new sister in law is
planning to visit with my eldest brother for the weekend. She asked me what we might do to pass
the time together. I was hard
pressed for an answer, since we have no particular tradition for Christmas, and
asked her if we ought to consider baking a gingerbread house. But I didn’t reveal the real prospect
that this weekend has to offer the Mahmood household: a face off between the New
York Jets and the New York Giants.
You could not ask for a more tailor made event to bring each member of
our very eclectic family in front of the same screen. It might not be the warmest and fuzziest celebration, since
allegiances under the same roof are not united. But it will make for a historic Christmas weekend. A Jets victory over the Giants would
set just the right tone for a Triumphant Underdog 2012. Merry Christmas to all, a Happy New Year, and GJH!
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