Christmas in Jerusalem

Marina talking to the Monk at the
Church of Visitation in Ein Karem



Mary and Elizabeth and some Christmas decoration
at the Church of Visitation

What an experience! We had a wonderful time over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Jerusalem with our friends who live here: Amir, Yael, Itai, Gaya and No’am (alias…the Elrons). The Elrons have the local knowledge so we were taken to many special places.
Israel is physically such a small country – the drive to Jerusalem took less than an hour. We hope to find time to go back and explore some more. But before getting to Jerusalem, we stopped in a lovely old town called Ein Karem. The elevation was higher than we had experienced on the coast, and it was quite a bit colder than we are used to (I actually had to switch to long pants! Ross didn’t though). We wandered the old town which was lovely and walked up to a beautiful church called the Church of the Visitation. We learned from a monk the history of the church and the chapels.

Marina enjoying some Israeli wine!

Our group runs on its stomach so we found a lovely Italian style restaurant in an old stone building with good pizza and ice cream side by side. A nice chance to warm up on the outside and the inside. And a chance to have a lovely glass of wine – which by the way, Israel makes some really great wines. Another side trip hopeful is a trip to one of the wineries here.



Dome in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre



Gaya and Jessie at the Stone of Unction




Lighting Candles in the Church of Sepulchre

  We were invited to midnight mass at another church there, called the Church of St. John the Baptist, but it was still early so we decided to keep going to our hotel nearer the Old City of Jerusalem. After checking in to our somewhat run-down but clean hotel rooms, we regrouped and headed towards the Old City of Jerusalem. Once again, food first (5 kids with varying eating habits!). We went to a cool restaurant called the Cinematique for some very tasty “fuel” and off we went by foot to explore the Old City. At this point it was after 10 pm so the goal was to see what we could find for midnight mass.  



Jessie at the Altar in the Chapel of the
Finding of the Cross



We went to The Church of the Dormition where already there was a large line-up of people wanting to get in…standing room only. We made our way in and took a look at the back of the church, which from what we could see was amazing! There were 9 of us and we knew that waiting over an hour for mass would probably not work for everyone so we went back out to explore more and see what we could find. Unfortunately all of the other churches seemed to have already had their Christmas mass so we literally wandered the rooftops of the Armenian quarter of the Old City, listened to church bells ring out, looked at a bright moon and watched the many other people, young and old, tourist and local, religious and not, enjoy the spirit of Christmas Eve in this amazing place.

We eventually made our way out of the Old City and back to our hotel and bed.

Market Day in the Armenian Quarter

Breakfast was buffet style in the hotel and then we took our time cleaning up and checking out. Back to the Old City to see more. We entered through Jaffa Gate this time, and were met instantly by 100’s of people milling about for “Market Day” in the Armenian Quarter. Small alleys with shops on either side, a thoroughfare of people moving in both directions, wall to wall. Tea being served, guys with massive loads of bread carried on trays on their head (no hands!), different languages being spoken everywhere and looking around once again, the vast different nationalities, cultures and religions all around was mind boggling. And smells…mostly delicious and wonderful…all in all a delightful blast to the senses.



More Market Day on Christmas Day

The highlight was the Church of Holy Sepulchre (also called the Church of the Resurrection) which we explored at length. Touching the Stone of Unction and using the oil to bless our “safe travels coin”, lighting candles for past and present friends, looking at all the artwork, tombs and altars in every nook and cranny on at least 3 levels in this beautiful old church. And in the middle a separate chapel for the tomb (or sepulcher) of Jesus. A very long line to get into this one and we were content to look from the outside.

We had divided and conquered as the boys were not so interested in the “marketing” as we girls were, had to make a few memento purchases of course! So we regrouped at the Austrian Hospice (after Jessie, Gaya and I had also thoroughly checked out the Armenian Chapel of St. Helena as well). The Elrons had run into other friends so we all joined for a cup of tea and a snack before carrying on.

Matt and Ross on the roof of the Austrian Hospice

We knew we couldn’t see it all so decided to make sure we got to key highlights and the West Wall was at the top of the list (i.e. Wailing Wall). We walked through to the Jewish Quarter, went through security (literally like an airport), and quietly walked into the area with the West Wall. It was Sabbath and there were many people at the wall – segregated men on the left and women on the right. Most of the men were Hissidic Jews (black suits, black hats and the curly hair at the sides that I don’t know the name of). Jessie, Gaya and I decided to go the wall, the girls wrote a note and stuck it in between the stones and I thought of friends and family here and gone. One walks away from the wall backwards so we did that too.

Gaya and Jessie in front of the Wailing Wall

We regrouped and agreed it was time to head home. An hour later we were back at Tara, with many unique and wonderful memories of “Jerusalem for Christmas 2010”.