c. 2003 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ It’s Christmastime in the Holy Land, but unless you celebrate the holiday or know someone who does, you might not even realize it.

In Israel, which is predominantly Jewish, and in the Palestinian Authority, overwhelmingly Muslim, you won’t find any sidewalk Santas camped outside department stores or enticing kids to the toy department.

“Jingle Bell Rock” doesn’t play in the background as you do your holiday shopping, and TV commercials don’t count down the number of shopping days till Christmas.

Even in such Christian enclaves as Bethlehem and Nazareth, where several thousand families celebrate the holiday with special church services, school pageants and concerts, the atmosphere is low-key, at least by Western standards.

Part of the reason is practical: The ongoing violence between Palestinians and Israelis has scared away tourists, hurting the many Christians who derive, or used to derive, their livelihood from pilgrimages.

There’s also a cultural element: Local Christians, most of them Arabs, are a minority here and elsewhere in the Middle East. Even before the intifada, they tended to maintain a relatively low profile.

Christians from abroad are inevitably surprised _ even shocked _ by the lack of yuletide hoopla, but many say they find the simplicity of a Holy Land Christmas not only refreshing but spiritually uplifting.

“I like the fact that it’s not commercial,” said Jennifer Griffin, a Fox News correspondent who has lived in Jerusalem for four years. “It means you have to go the extra mile in creating your own Christmas environment.”

For Griffin, an Episcopalian from Alexandria, Va., celebrating Christmas in the Holy Land has meant “re-creating what I remember from my childhood but without the malls and commercials telling me what Christmas should be. We can pick and choose what we want to emphasize. That makes it even better.”

Griffin spent her first Holy Land Christmas in front of the camera covering the pre-millennium festivities at Manger Square.

“Unfortunately Bethlehem is a little bleak these days, but the first millennium celebration was incredible,” the journalist recalled. “We were in Manger Square and people from around the world were singing Christmas carols. We had to do live shots all night long and I remember watching the sunrise over the Church of the Nativity. It was one of my most memorable experiences here.”

While Griffin, the mother of two little girls, admits to feeling some nostalgia for holiday movies and Nat King Cole tunes, “there’s the flip side,” she said. “Our older daughter isn’t being inundated with commercials and people marketing things to her. She’s not talking about Santa Claus all the time. She’s asked for only one present this year.”

“I don’t miss all the commercial aspects,” agreed Griffin’s husband, Greg Myre, a Jerusalem-based New York Times correspondent. Even so, he marvels at just how understated a Holy Land Christmas can be.

“I’ve gone to work and my Jewish and Muslim colleagues didn’t even realize it was Christmas Day,” said Myre, a Presbyterian raised in St. Louis. “It’s not that they were dismissive, it’s just that they didn’t notice. It’s like when many Americans aren’t aware of a Jewish or Muslim holiday.”

David Parsons, an evangelical Christian who serves as the information officer of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, said, “There is something special about being here in the land of Israel because it is the land of his (Jesus’) birth.”

Parsons, from Kill Devil Hills, N.C., said the many years he has lived in the Holy Land have strengthened his faith.

“When the Bible talks about the stable” where Jesus was born, “I understand it’s talking about a cave. There are still shepherds today who keep their sheep in caves. Therefore, I appreciate just how lonely (Jesus’) birth was,” Parsons said.

Being in the land of the Bible also helped him delve deeper into the Jewish roots of Christianity, he said.

“I’ve learned a lot more about the land and culture Jesus was born into,” he said. “When you’re here this time of year and see how Jews celebrate Hanukkah, you understand how Jesus kept Hanukkah _ the Feast of Lights or Feast of Dedication _ as it’s told in the Book of John.”

Which is not to say Parsons and his wife, Josepha, who recalls elaborate family Christmas celebrations in her hometown of Delft, Holland, do not appreciate the way things are done in the West.

“Several years ago, my wife and I were in Antwerp at Christmastime,” Parsons said. “There was music and it was colorful and there was something very joyful about it. But it also creates pressure to buy, buy, buy. Suddenly, the holiday isn’t about giving but about buying, and that atmosphere detracts from the holiday’s spirituality.”

Brother Lawrence Bode, the caretaker of Bethlehem’s tiny Milk Grotto Church, the place where, according to tradition, Mary hid in order to breastfeed Jesus when she and Joseph were fleeing King Herod, said he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else at Christmastime.

“We’re right here where Jesus was born, so if anything we feel even closer to him here,” the Franciscan said of his small community of brothers, who are responsible for maintaining the large and small Catholic churches and shrines that dot the Holy Land.

Despite the hardships that he and other Bethlehem residents have endured during the ongoing Palestinian uprising and Israeli security closures of their small West Bank town, Bode, who was born and raised in Manhattan, expresses optimism for the future.

“Pilgrims almost stopped visiting due to the political problems, but they started coming back three or four months ago,” Bode says cheerfully, waving goodbye to a visiting tour group. “I must have seen four tour groups this morning in Manger Square and one came here, to the Milk Grotto. All the stores are open,” he says of the numerous souvenir shops in the town, most of which have been closed for much of the past three years. “And to the best of my knowledge, pilgrims are not having troubles at the (Israeli) checkpoints we saw a year ago.”

With the optimism of a true believer, Bode said, “Hopefully it will continue.”

DEA END CHABIN