Brrring! The bell screeches, telling us that lunch is here.

A herd of tiny, boisterous bodies rushes into the open courtyard, waiting to eat, play, laugh, and talk together. Amongst them, a large group of girls congregate, buzzing with renewed excitement, eager to witness the daily ritual. I follow my friend, Githushka, out the door, rushing to get a prime spot.

I am seven years old. It’s time for communion in my United Methodist Church in a small town in mid-Michigan. After watching communion by intinction happen for so many years from the sidelines, I am excited when my mom tells me it is okay for me to line up in the center aisle with her and slowly shuffle forward, waiting for my time to tear a piece of bread off the soft, white loaf and dip it in the grape juice.

Dearest You,

I need to peel off my flesh. Just a small slit on the wrist to get things started, then slice it back like puckered chicken skin with a paring knife and fry it in a pan.

I heard the words, but they had never really registered. “Remember, no sleep for two year!” my boss warned when I shared the news of my second pregnancy with him.

It’s a filthy place, the inside of his mind, but I’ve forced myself to wade through the sewage of his thoughts.

He followed me for a block, waiting until we were somewhere with less traffic.

I am cerebral person, I have to think about things, rationalize them, untangle them, for a long time after they happen. Even if it’s torture. Even if it’s pointless.

Rage enveloped me in my mother’s womb. It bathed me in amniotic fluid that permeated my cells, and developed who I was about to become. The origin of this rage could have evolved from my mother’s life events. My mother from Japan, who immigrated to America a decade after WWII ended. Whose legs carried her as she and her family ran from their house after it was bombed and burned to the ground, barely making it out alive.

It all started last March. I was looking out the window while driving to a regular doctor appointment. It was a gloomy morning. I looked at the road and saw all the cows and farms on the country road that led me to the doctor’s office.

My firstborn was a seven pound preemie. He was born at thirty-five and a half weeks, barely qualifying for the moniker. I only use it in air quotes, out of respect for the mothers of what I call real preemies.

When I was little I would lean out the window of our second floor Mexico City home and sing to the stars.  I would make up my little melodies as the evening lingered on with my little brother joining me in my serenade to the “little lights up in the sky.”  

I was always working hard to keep up appearances with family, friends and anyone who I thought I needed to impress. In high school, I experienced fear. It was a fear of being caught-out for not understanding what was being taught in the classroom. In no time at all, I became good at acting. I possessed all the skills necessary to give a convincing performance and I was very believable.

“I am Woman. Hear me roar, in numbers to big to ignore...”

How very blessed I was to be eleven years old when Helen Reddy launched her emphasise anthem to the world. With her pageboy haircut, knitted vest, and high waisted, flared jeans, she was everything I aspired to be.

It’s just a shame that some women choose to formula feed.

Everyone knows breast milk is best for babies! They are smarter and healthier-

Less likely to be obese!

I can always tell the difference between babies who are breastfed and formula fed-

They stop suddenly as I walk through the door, unsure whether or not I, the as-far-as-I-know-it only mom who formula feeds her baby, had overheard their conversation.

"I'm so excited mama!" Exclaims my 3 year old son, after an exhausting day of shopping. "I'm so excited for Christmas."

These words bring a flood of thoughts to my mind. Being a Muslim American, this is the first time I will have to explain to him the Muslim perspective on the most prominent display of religion in the U.S., Christmas. 

I remember lying under the church pew as a child.

“How much longer?” I would loudly whisper to my mother, my 7-year-old self never knowing how to wait.

“Not long,” she would answer, her faithful, copper brown eyes never losing focus. Her attention was glued to the altar. She was an Episcopalian to the core. And, meanwhile, I couldn’t even pronounce the word.

When I was young, I used to make these yarn dolls for our Christmas tree.

I’m not sure where I learned how to make them, but I used to wrap red and green yarn around my paperback copy of Little House on the Prairie. There was no significance to that book; it was just the right size.

My Holiday story is not much of a story, but rather a reflection. There has been so much happening in the world this holiday season that I’ve gotten preoccupied. I’ve been busy with a new job, distracted with freelance work, and worse, I can’t seem to stop worrying about the world. I don’t go to church much but that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t say that because I studied theology or because I have a startling amount of pastor friends. I say it because there have been very few times that I have felt whole and alive and connected in church. It usually happens somewhere else. Usually in a lecture, or in a verse of poetry. There is a moment where I feel wholly alive and the world seems bright, and hopeful. Once or twice that has happened in the dark sweet stillness of a church, as well. But normally—usually—I feel the most connected when I am going about my daily life.

My feelings towards the Holidays have morphed dramatically over the years. Like most people, I often feel a whirlwind of shifting emotions sometimes in a matter of minutes. The holidays can trigger anxiety and fear, love and joy, even pain, grief, and guilt. 

I LOVE the season of Advent.  Always have.  There is something exciting and hopeful about looking forward to replaying Christ’s birth in the Christian liturgical year.  I like it so much more than the season of Lent, which anticipates the Easter narrative of Christ’s death and resurrection.  To me, all the violence and death is not much to look forward to.  Plus we deal with those realities in life everyday so I just don’t care as much about Easter or find Christ’s death and resurrection as helpful as I do God’s incarnation in the Christmas story.  Some Christians may think I’m off my rocker for claiming that the incarnation is more meaningful or helpful than the death/resurrection but hear me out.