10 Reasons Why Turkey Should Not Celebrate Christmas

It’s still a hurting fact that we Turkish people don’t celebrate Christmas but we want to. It’s a lie if anyone says we don’t. Look around, in Turkey, every shop, whether they are in a city with a foreign population or not, has a Christmas tree before the New Years Eve. 

“New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the incoming year. The observance of New Year's Eve generally extends through midnight of January 1” Says Wikipedia.

So, new years eve has nothing to do with Islam, alcohol is forbidden, fireworks is not a aprt of culture and consuming more than you need is strictly prohibited according to the religion. Gregorian calendar? I am not even going there.

Would Christmas matter for nonreligious people if it wasn’t a bank holiday? That question is worth talking about, but I personally think whether religious or not, people are born with a need to believe, and western cultures are careful about people and special days.

But what I can’t understand is that the biggest deal is the Christmas! You guys live for it. You live the whole year to finish it and celebrate it. Gifts, songs, parties, events, meals, plans, dresses, Santa, socks, it’s a sin not to make it a big deal. It’s just like a girl starting a school and dreaming all about prom.  Christmas is every year though.

Turkish way of life is not suitable for this kind of day even though adopting some other special days seems fine.And I can find more than ten reasons for that, but I have never seen a blog with a title “13 reasons why..” so I will write 10 of them.

1.     
  Turkish people are not rich enough to adopt new years eve to consume and Christmas just 6 days before that.

2.     
  There is no way to make Turkish children believe in Santa, when they already believe in Granddad Moon, Mother Earth, and Father Allah.  I mean, which part of the family is Santa? He’s not, so Santa cannot be real.

3.    
   In this culture, especially Eastern Turkey, when a woman is pregnant with no father, the woman would be killed by Stones thrown by her villagers. Jesus wouldn’t possibly be born in this culture and no one would celebrate an unborn man’s birthday.

4.      
Who would cook turkey when there is a chance to slaughter sheep?

5.      
Christmas tree and gifts underneath for the whole family? Last time my dad bought a present for me, he ate them all because he forgot I don’t like sweets!

6.      
If Santa was believed to come to Turkey, and to be flying with 9 reindeers, probably especially after  Turkey met liberalism, he would be told to get permission and accused of not paying tax for using Turkish airspace and be banned to fly over the country with no Turkish flag on the car. Our government has a bit of misunderstanding wth tax stuff.

7.      
I wonder if Ibrahim Tatlıses wrote a Christmas song and we listened to that song a whole month, wait. I don’t want to think that.

8.     
  Christmas would be such a big deal in Turkey that it would be meaningless in the end. Look how Christmas still being celebrated and the importance is given but ask a Turkish young person about Ramadan or Sugar festival, you will most probably get the answer that it is just a bank holiday and they won’t give a damn about visiting elders and kissing hands. They don’t have time!

9.       
  It’s a big deal, and it’s great for economy in western countries. Everyone does shopping, buys stuff for people they feel they have to, and everyone is happy with that. Tree is put a month before the day, events are announced and invitations are given. And Christmas finishes, New Years Eve comes, and goes. And life goes back to normal with promises to oneself and so on. But in Turkey, that tree would stay there because of lazy shopkeepers, and there would be Christmas discount, and New Years Eve discount, and “we’re finishing what’s left” discount, and end of winter discount and all you could see would be the same Christmas discount design in the shops. I saw Ramadan packages in Tansas the other day, from summer. Who would want to buy Santa clothes in summer?

10.  
  We already have Ramadan and Sugar Festivals and if we had Christmas and New Years Eve with more than 4 days bank holiday, the traffic accidents and drink-drives would reach a level that it would be dangerous for this nation to grow the population.

Actually I’m glad we haven’t adopted Christmas, Halloween and the Thanksgiving. Wouldn’t it be the same thing you starting to slaughter animals for what you don’t believe?