I think it's more than a little obvious that I'm muslim, after all, my blog's name is Cutie Hijabi, so it might come as a surprise that I still celebrate Christmas and I can completely understand that. After all, in islam there are only three religious celebrations, so why am I celebrating Christmas? The answer is a little more complicated, but the basic reason is that I was born and raised roman catholic so I spent almost my entire life celebrating it intensely. The long answer? Well, like I said, it's a little more complicated.
When I first became muslim four years, I was intent on not celebrating any holidays that were associated with my old religion, especially since all of my online muslimah friends were pressuring me in the guise of "encouragement", that celebrating these holidays would be very sinful and hypocritical. When Christmas came along, I felt very sad and depressed. Christmas had always been my favourite holiday growing up, it was when you could hear Christmas carols on the radio, when people were happy and more friendly and the whole family came together no matter how ridiculously difficult it might've been to make that happen. I loved the decorations, even though we rarely had a tree growing up, and all the lights and the true feeling of love was infectious. And suddenly, I was being told that if I joined in in this wonderful and beautiful holiday that my entire family and culture loved, I would be committing a huge sin and Allah (swt) would be angry with me, despite being the same God that I'd learned about in sunday school. I felt so depressed and one day, I actually opened up to this with my Darling (then, just a friend) and he listened to me very intently as I explained to him how much Christmas meant to me, to my family and my culture, and he let me cry and get frustrated and upset and when I was done, we sat together in silence before he told me that he didn't really see any problem in my celebrating it. After all, my family wasn't muslim and it would be almost disrespectful to not take part in their celebrations, after all, wouldn't I expect them to be respectful of our religious holidays? Surely that went both ways. And while he told me that in islam we don't believe that Isa (ras) is the son of God, he said as long as I believed what islam and the quran teaches, then he didn't see any problem with it. Exchanging gifts, eating dinner and breakfast with my family and decorating the tree were the least sinful things he could think of.
I looked at him a little surprised at first, and then I nodded. I felt a tremendous amount of relief, especially since I'd kept all these feelings hidden inside until they'd burst out from building up so much. I asked him if he really thought it was ok and told him about all the pressure I felt from other muslims, especially other reverts, and he listened and then told me again that he believed it was fine. He reminded me that he, a born muslim whose entire family was muslim, exchanged Christmas presents with me every year and he told me that no matter how many times we did this, he would never believe that Isa (ras) was the son of God nor would he stop believing that Mohammad (saw) was the last prophet of God. I started to relax and feel better while he reminded me that I'd given him a Christmas present four months after we'd met and how happy and surprised he'd been and how happy he'd felt opening it and looking at what I'd gotten him. How could something so sweet and loving be sinful? How could spreading happiness be something Allah (swt) would be angry about? Hearing him say it made so much sense to me and I told him that I felt the same way.
It's been five years since then and I've continued to celebrate Christmas and Easter (altho I really only help my niece and nephew paint eggs and watch them spend an hour trying to find them) and I feel very happy. It's true that my family don't celebrate Eid, but it's also true that I haven't been able to tell them I reverted for safety reasons, but I hope that when they do find out, they'll see that me being muslim doesn't change anything, in sha Allah. The only difference is that after his roommate got mad at us exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve, he now insists we exchange them a week or two before Christmas so he can tell his roommate that they're "not-Christmas-gifts" since we "just happened" to exchange them in late December. Since I spend Christmas day with my family, we haven't been able to get together on Christmas, but I hope that in the future, he can spend it with me and my family, in sha Allah. For now, we get together a little before or after and go out to eat and to the movies or something fun to celebrate it in our own way. I honestly feel so happy and blessed to be with someone that's so understanding and willing to help me find a middle ground between our religion and my family's religion.
No comments
Post a Comment