When I was eight years old, I was living in Dubai and desperate to experience a western Christmas. My family are Muslim, and Christmas was something we’d never celebrated – but after consuming countless festive Hallmark movies, I was hooked on the dream of having turkey, tinsel and, most importantly, presents. I also had an enormous crush on Macaulay Culkin, and thought if I could experience Christmas for myself it would somehow bring me closer to him.
After months of badgering my parents about why my twin brother and I deserved Christmas, they relented. My beautiful Iraqi-Egyptian mother took on the task with gumption, finding the largest, tackiest tree you can imagine.
In the weeks preceding Christmas Day, I watched the tree take on more and more ornaments, each more shiny and outrageous than the last. My mother was, and still is, the most glamorous woman I know; going to shopping malls with her was heaven, as she would delight shop assistants by catwalking in various ensembles. The tree fell victim to her charm, as it accumulated ornament after ornament, each as opulent as the ensembles she would wear to her upmarket luncheons.
Better still, the tree was surrounded by a climbing mountain of gifts, in pristine wrapping. Day by day, it grew in scale, my own Everest of delights to be explored on Christmas morning. The pile grew seriously large, encroaching on the living room like a tsunami of privilege. I felt like the luckiest boy in the world. Mama said my brother and I were not to touch any of the gifts, as it would disrupt the gorgeous display she had so meticulously crafted. She used to say the same about her outfits.
Every day after school I gawped at – but never touched – the joy that awaited me. When Christmas Day came, I was awake at 5am and brimming with excitement. I started to tear open the never-ending pile of presents. I ripped open the first one – and found an empty tissue box. I was utterly confused. Maybe it was a joke? My family were obsessed with pranks, so I moved on to the next parcel: again, an empty tissue box. As I rummaged through what I had hoped would be a lifetime’s supply of toys, I found only more of the same. With tears in my eyes, I looked up at my mother.
“Where are my presents? It’s Christmas.”
“Yes, habibi. Look. Our living room looks like Christmas.”
She was right: our home had been transformed into a shiny performance of western commerciality. Ever the glamorous queen, she had prioritised how it looked, and it was picture-perfect; but the substance – by which I mean my gifts – remained absent.
“We don’t celebrate Christmas,” she said, sympathetically. “What did you expect?”
I felt consumed by the kind of grief only a spoilt child can know; my brother, too, was in mourning. Our mother had wanted to give us the Christmas we had asked for – and, as always, the aesthetics were spot on. But we were distraught.
I lay surrounded by a hundred empty tissue boxes. Eventually, my parents relented and bought me a Game Boy; it was the only thing that would remedy my despondence. That, and watching Home Alone on repeat.
