We don't celebrate Christmas in Turkey. At least not on Christmas Day. Turkey is a Muslim country and Jesus (or Isa) was just another prophet so his birthday is just another day. But that doesn't mean Turks miss out on all the fun.
So Christmas gets pushed forward a few days to morph into the annual New Year's holiday and out come the Christmas trees and decorations, the turkey (usually sliced and grilled rather than trussed and stuffed) and the inevitable Christmas TV. Santa's hat pops up on everyone's logo and Jingle Bells rings out in the local supermarket where there are shelves of sweets and bizarre Santa paraphernalia. The pre-New Yearmas shopping frenzy gets under way...
On New Year's Eve, Turkish kids wait excitedly for Father Christmas (who was, after all, born on the south coast of Turkey and became Bishop of Myra before his rebirth as St Nick) to bring gifts. Families gather to eat and drink and play tombola and at night the sky explodes with fireworks and cried of 'Mutlu Yillar' (Happy New Year).
This New Year has been an odd one. It coincided with Kurban Bayram, the annual festival in which Muslims commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. This holiday which, like the post-Ramadan celebration, shifts back by 10 days every year, is one of the most important in Turkey and is anticipated by much house cleaning, the buying of new clothes and the purchase of a male sheep, goat or, for the truly wealthy, a camel to be duly sacrificed on the first day of Kurban Bayram, re-enacting God’s instructions to Abraham.
In the big cities, special areas are set aside for the mass slaughter, with expert butchers sharpening their knives. But in villages like Dalyan, the sacrifice takes place closer to home and throughout December, most village gardens have contained a tethered sheep or goat, cosseted and well cared for but blissfully unaware that it wouldn’t be seeing in 2007.
For last minute shoppers, truckloads of the beasts arrived at the year's last Saturday market. A goat has indeed been a popular Christmas gift this winter - gifted to the Third World by charity-conscious Yuppies and put to an equally practical use in Turkey.
The foreigners who live in Dalyan – and there are many – woke on New Year’s Eve to the scent of blood and the aroma of barbecued meat. Some received a bag of warm meat from friendly neighbours. Others kept curtains firmly closed till midday!
It seems barbaric but this ritual is enacted throughout the Muslim world, where the sacrifice brings honour on the family and the meat is distributed to the poor. It is hugely important and this year took precedence over even New Year since sacrificial meat should not be eaten with alcohol and many Turkish families toned down their midnight binge. But not everyone...
We saw in the New Year at our friends Rosa and Aydin's house with Scotch, wine and far too much food in the true British Xmas tradition (they postponed the sacrificial feast to another day). We toasted and remembered and talked into the night with Turkey's answer to Andy Stewart on TV. And at midnight we let off the fireworks and hoped for a happy and healthy 2007.
This New Year was 24 hours of complete contradiction which sums up my life in Turkey. Christmas and New Year and the Festival of Sacrifice all rolled into one huge celebration with everyone enjoying it (except perhaps for the goats) and accepting each other's culture as part of the package.
What a shame the rest of the world can't be more like this.
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