3ZUMA · عزومة · December — and January

The Christmas Table

عيد الميلاد

Bethlehem is a Levantine town. The diaspora didn't adopt this holiday — it brought it here.

Meghli, maamoul, dates, and coffee — the tree is American, the table is not.

It surprises people to hear it, but Arab Christians are among the oldest Christian communities on earth — families in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt who have kept the feast since before most of Europe heard of it. Bethlehem is not a word from a carol to them; it's a town, with cousins in it. So when these families came to America, they didn't learn Christmas here. They brought their own, and then had to explain to their new neighbors why it tastes completely different.

What lands on the table depends on where home is. Lebanese and Syrian houses make meghli — the spiced rice pudding served for every newborn, which is the point: this season celebrates a birth. Palestinian families carry the weight and the pride of celebrating the town itself. Iraqi families bake kleicha, the date-filled cookies, in quantities that assume the whole parish might stop by. And Coptic Egyptian families fast — no meat, no dairy — through all of Advent, then break the fast after the January 7th liturgy with a feast that has been earned in full.

The season opens early, too: December 4th, Saint Barbara's Day, when the burbara pot goes on — sweet wheat with anise, nuts, and pomegranate — and children once went door to door in costume for it. And through all of it, on every table regardless of country or calendar, sits the maamoul tray: the same date-stuffed cookies, from the same wooden molds, that come out for Eid in the house next door. The neighbors have been trading them for centuries.

The anatomy of the season

• December 4 — Eid il-Burbara: the burbara pot opens the season. Wheat, anise, nuts, pomegranate.
• The meghli: made in small bowls, kept stocked for whoever knocks, dressed with walnuts, pistachios, and coconut.
• The maamoul tray: pressed, dusted, defended from children until the day itself.
• The feast: usually the family's big-platter dish — the same table that welcomes anyone home.
• The coffee: Arabic, with cardamom, poured in small cups all night. The visit is the holiday.
• January 7: for Orthodox and Coptic families, the real date — and for mixed families, the second round.

Set This Table

The maamoul, the coffee, the dates — the season's open-door supplies, shipped.

Mariam's maamoul — the tray itself$19.99The 24-count — for parish-sized visiting$39.98Zalatimo Baklava Pouch$19.99Arabic coffee with cardamom — the all-night pot$15.99Al Ameed Turkish Coffee with Cardamom 8oz$12.99Yafa Al Maduna Dates$25.99Rose water — for the meghli school that uses it$4.99Cortas Halva Pistachio - 454g$13.44

Free U.S. shipping on orders over $75.