If you've been following our Facebook page, you'll know we've been posting some (somewhat silly) videos of Christmas in the Middle East and South Asia. They've pretty much all featured a very silly interpretation of Santa Claus.
In a region of the world with a relatively low Christian population in comparison to the either Muslim, or in India's case Hindu, majority, it seems like this time of year, before the commercialization and consequent acceptance of Christmas, there wasn't much to do. (Yes, I know there's Chanukah, but that actually still
is a very religious holiday that non-Jews have not adopted, and given the current strain in the region, they probably won't adopt any time soon.)
Well, for Persians though, we do have a tradition that's close to Christmas.
Shab e Yalda, also known just as "Yalda" is this Friday. It's caused some delays here in terms of sewing, but it's also given a few things to post about in lieu of the lack of sewing.
Yalda tradition extends back thousands of years as a celebration of the beginning of the end of the "darkest" days; essentially, it's celebrated on the day with the shortest daylight hours to welcome back the longer days that will be arriving. Despite being something that has been around so long, like Christmas, it really comes into it's "modern" version in the 19th century.
Image of a very simple korsi with family gathered around it by Antoin Sevruguin (gotta love this guy for all his photos!) via
