A Christmas Album: Indian and South Asian Americans Display the Spirit of Holiday Season
- Desis of different faiths celebrated Christmas across the United States and around the world. Many of them, finally liberated from the pandemic restrictions, spent this season in India with family and friends. Here are a few vignettes some of them have shared with American Kahani.
Indian Americans of different faiths are celebrating Christmas across the United States and around the world. Many of them, finally liberated from the pandemic restrictions, are celebrating this Christmas in India with family and friends. Here are a few vignettes some of them have shared with American Kahani.
Ayesha Ray, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at King’s College, Pennsylvania.
Sadaf Jaffer, New Jersey Assemblywoman
From the Heartland
Judge Juli Mathew, Fort Bend County, TX
“As a Keralite Christian, the birth of Christ is celebrated with all the glory and honor it deserves among the Christians hailing from Kerala. Special foods such as appam and curry either with chicken or mutton is made and Christmas cake is shared. I grew up in the Marthoma Church and my most favorite part was attending the Christmas Eve service, when the lights are dimmed and candles are lit, when the hymn Silent Night is sung by the whole congregation, when all is truly calm and bright. Christmas 2022 is even more special because I am able to spend it with my husband‘s family in India. I haven’t spent a Christmas in India since 1986. As a child growing up in Kerala, India, I remember making a Christmas tree out of a cut bamboo. Pine trees are not abundant in these parts so bamboo sufficed. Artificial pine trees are abundant in the stores here now but I still wanted a tree outside like my childhood memories of India. Instead of a bamboo tree, we had a pine tree which we decorated and part of me is re-living that childhood Christmas from long ago.”
Namrita Yuhanna faraway from California
Aroras of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Joyful Crew: The Patricio Matchanickal family celebrate Christmas in Chantilly, Virginia
From San Francisco with love: Papiha Nandy, CEO Entrepreneur, activist, feminist, investor and philanthropist
Out of the cold front
The Bharucha girls from Atlanta
A Jersey Christmas
Nativity in the Sunshine State
Celebrations across generations at Soumya Rege‘s home in Bellaire, Texas
Faraway from Sweet Home Alabama