Christmas In Reverse Order

Archaeologist Ayşe Temiz leading the protest against the new jetty 

Boxing Day was spent in an appropriately pugilistic manner, protesting against a blot on the landscape.  The struts of an illegal jetty in front of The Halikarnasus Club have been spoiling the view of the castle from the Kumbahçe side of Bodrum for too long and despite the promise of their removal being dangled as a carrot (pre-election) by local political parties,  the stakes are still there. This was annoying enough but when news came out of the blue that permission was about to be granted for the (illegal) jetty to be built, the residents of Bodrum were out on the streets to show their displeasure.  We've just heard that the tender to rebuild has been withdrawn today, so fingers and toes are crossed and will be until those ugly posts start being pulled up. 

The beach was definitely the place to be on Christmas day - warm and sunny with not a breath of wind. As we sipped our mulled pomegranate juice and munched our imported cheese, a woman swam leisurely past, a sight common enough in the Antipodes on 25th December, but not here. 

I can't say much about the Christmas Eve Mayor's party as we only popped in for a short while and left before the host arrived.  A combination of 2 head colds and smokey braziers is not a comfortable one and we didn't want to spread our unseasonable germs around, so we arrived on the dot of 7pm.   I couldn't  help but notice how amazingly prompt people arrive at a party when the drinks are on the house.  It's a pity we can't get such a good attendance for the Consulate information meetings! 

Christmas 1983

Wandering around the Maritime Museum last week, I noticed a small photo of a familiar face.  

In September 1983, my boyfriend, dog and I were given notice to leave our rented house in Tepecik, Bodrum. We had to be out the day before Bayram, despite this falling mid month, and we searched high and low for somewhere to go.  If you think the rental market is difficult in Bodrum now, it was even worse then and on national holidays, every single spare bed and mattress in the town was sold to a tourist. Many would arrive in Bodrum and end up sleeping in their cars; we only had a bicycle, so that wasn't an option.  I can't remember how, but Boatyard owner, Erol Özyurt heard of our plight and offered us his house in the middle of Bitez citrus gardens. It had no electricity, no bathroom and an outdoor loo but we were overjoyed to accept his offer.  There wasn't a track to the house and we had to cross a small (at the time, a torrent later in the year) stream and a few fields to get there. Guests would have to be met and guided in or else be lost wandering for ages.

Lon and Deniz being shown the way through the orange trees

Within a week, we had put in electricity poles, dug out the alaturka loo in the garden (although it took us a year to actually put a door on it), added a water heater and shower and we were set to spend 2 happy years living amongst the trees, only leaving to buy our own house.  I'm not sure how I would cope now with having to put on wellies and grab a torch to go to the loo in the middle of the night, but then it was an adventure and what most of my friends were having to do too. Going through old photo albums, I found this picture of a Boxing Day party, and realised that I'm in regular contact with these friends still and my mother often recalls that warm sunny December day.
So, as I passed his photo in the museum, I offered up a big thank you to Erol Bey for being so generous  in offering us a home and making my first Christmas in Turkey a beautiful one and the first of many.

Boxing Day 1983

Deck the halls with bows and pom-poms.

Facebook is full of pictures of well decorated Christmas trees. We don't have a tree because all our decorations are in our village house storeroom. I can't get to them as our car is in the repair shop. (I hope whoever it was who smashed the back bumper and drove off is being kept awake at night by pangs of guilt).  As a token decoration I have combined my burgeoning skills in crochet, which I rediscovered last Friday after a gap of 25 years, and pop-pom making (probably about 45 years since I practised this craft) and made myself an indoor wreath, so the house is not a completely Xmas-free zone.
Bodrum is also gearing itself up for Christmas. I stocked up with crackers at the first Christmas market and on Friday we attended the annual Christmas Carols.  There are plenty more markets, dinners and carols to come, but the last Friday's event is the most important one for long-term immigrants as it has been going for enough years to be a tradition. Many of us can still remember the first one and the hours of rehearsals we put in practicing carols.

Geoff, Lon and the Band - Friday 12th Dec 2014

Lon, Geoff and carol singers (my daughter in blue) Dec 1998

My daughter and Geoff 2014

I move to reintroduce the rehearsals for next year's concert as the audience were all struggling to be heard, despite having our vocal cords lubricated with mulled wine, or maybe it's just the years catching up with us.

D.I.Y. Christmas

This Christmas marks a landmark in our family. My daughter has moved out into her own apartment and for the first time in 21 years we got the decorations box out of storage and had to divide up the goodies.  She thought I should keep the angels, as I started collecting them long before she was born and I thought she should have all the red tinsel and baubles as she is brighter and more outgoing than me and red suits her.  We don't have Christmas trees but have made do, as we always do in Turkey, with a twiggy branch sprayed white.  This year we sprayed two.
This divvying up of Christmas paraphernalia has given cause for reflection and as someone who has spent roughly half my adult Christmas celebrations in the UK and half in Turkey I feel it's time for some comparisons.  One obvious omission  here is the lack of Advent. We don't light a candle on the first Sunday in December and the weather is usually too sunny to even think of winter but having visited the UK at the end of October and walked around a garden centre where Santa and his grotto were already set up, this is a good thing.  I can measure the number of times I hear Noddy Holder belting out his Christmas money spinner on the fingers of two hands here, whereas I would probably need the fingers and toes of a whole primary school in England.  I can comfortably start contemplating seasonal food preparation in the third week of December in Turkey and I won't have to have sat through the mandatory work Xmas lunch in the first week of December. (Is there anything worse than the false jollity of wearing a paper cracker-hat in the company of your work colleagues, eating dry roast turkey, at least 3 weeks before the 25th?)

Felt Christmas trees - What better way to decorate the tree.

The best thing about Christmas in a country that doesn't celebrate the Nativity is that we do it ourselves. When I first came to Bodrum, there were no decorations available, but plenty of pine cones, white spray-paint and sequins. Add red ribbons, hand-cut wooden snowflakes and bells and we didn't miss our fairy lights and baubles.  With the eruption of New Year celebrations in Turkey recently, all manner of flickering lights, trinkets and gaudy sparkles are now available in the shops but it's still more fun to make your own.  My daughter and I had a "craft bag" that was much mocked by my friends, but gave us great pleasure as we made Christmas pom-poms, chains, cards and crackers that you had to shout "bang" when you pulled.  So I was really pleased to wander around the Xmas market in Bodrum last week and see that the next generation of ex-pat mums has gone one better than us and is making cakes, mince pies, decorations and crackers that actually bang  to sell to each other.  This has to be better than  mega-supermarkets and chain stores goading us to spend more and more to add to their already obscene profits.

Ekim-Turquoise Secrets' beautiful Christmas cakes and biscuits

Angie's mince pies

The bi fit girls' Christmas floor show

If you haven't got a fir tree, decorate the next best thing.