Armenians Won’t Rush Christmas
Christmas trees, lights and decorations still festooning the homes of Armenians are not a sign of procrastination or an unwillingness to let holiday cheer fade.
Recent immigrants and American-born Armenians alike will carry on the traditions of their homeland by celebrating Christmas today with religious ceremonies and family feasts.
Early Christian churches observed Christmas in early January. In the 4th century, Western Christianity adopted Dec. 25 as Christmas to compete with pagan and other religious holidays. Armenia retained the early January date.
Father Shnork Demirjian of St. Peter Armenian Apostolic Church in Van Nuys said he expects 1,500 worshipers at morning services today, in addition to about 700 who planned to attend a Christmas Eve liturgy Wednesday night.
“It’s so special. It just links you to your grandparents’ tradition,” said Chatsworth resident Ani Hamalian, 39, whose family will be in attendance at St. Peter’s today.
But the pull of Dec. 25 cannot be ignored, and today’s spiritual celebration will mark the second Christmas in as many weeks for most Armenian American families.
“You can’t get out of it. Santa Claus is there on the 25th, so what are you going to do,” said Sam Boranian, St. Peter’s Sunday School superintendent. Boranian’s family of six children and 16 grandchildren gathered Dec. 25 for gift exchanges and a holiday feast.
“But there’s the spiritual part of it,” Boranian said. “If you have deep faith, you’re going to come and attend the services [today].”
St. Peter’s also recognizes both holidays, holding a candlelight service on Dec. 24 with Christmas carols sung mostly in English. But the pageantry of the holiday is saved for today, when Demirjian will sprinkle holy oil into a tub of water before immersing a cross, symbolizing the baptism of Jesus that followers believe occurred on his 30th birthday.
In the home, the traditions of Armenian Christmas call for setting out dried fruits, nuts and sweets to be shared with visiting friends and family.
“That shows the hospitality of the Armenian people and that they are rejoicing in the birth of Christ,” Demirjian said.
In their adopted country, however, many Armenians don’t have days off from work for holiday visiting, and tradition must take a back seat.
“Back home [in Lebanon], we visited everybody for Christmas,” Hamalian said. “But here it’s kind of hard. It’s the middle of the week and everybody’s working. It’s a different scenario.”
Hamalian’s family still adheres closely to the Armenian Christmas tradition after emigrating from Lebanon in the early 1980s. Her mother, Zarouhi, spent most of Wednesday preparing food from her native village of Aintab, Turkey, for a Christmas Eve dinner.
With two grandchildren and another daughter, Lina, looking on, Zarouhi Hamalian baked buereg, or meat turnovers, and stirred a pot of wheat and yogurt soup. Nivig--a dish made from Swiss chard, chickpeas and tomato sauce and eaten only at Christmas--sat on the counter awaiting the rest of the family’s arrival.
“Christmas is as important here as it was in Lebanon,” Ani Hamalian said. “Plus, my father, who passed away in 1993, always wanted us to have this tradition continued. We remember him more [at Christmas] and it’s more special.”
Meantime, children in Mexico and many Latin American countries today celebrate El Dia De Los Tres Reyes Magos, or the Day of the Three Wise Kings. Families distribute gifts to commemorate the day that the three wise men brought gifts to the newborn Christ child. Christmas Eve is usually reserved for the religious celebration of the birth of Christ.
“The anticipation of ‘Los Reyes Magos’ has all the children behaving because if they don’t behave, they won’t get gifts,” Huntington Park Mayor Rosario Marin said.
She said children in many Spanish-speaking countries write letters to the three kings asking for toys, just as other children write to Santa Claus.
Among other celebrations throughout Southern California for the Day of the Three Kings, the city of Huntington Park will host a procession Thursday night on Pacific Boulevard, the city’s main business district. The procession, expected to draw 10,000 people, will be led by three wise men, a camel, a horse and an elephant.