A Winter in India

The tree is genuine plastic with deluxe flashing lights. The ornaments are lovely handpainted papier mache ones from Kashmir.

There are Christmas decorations in all of the markets here, and many buildings have lights up. It is not a religious holiday for most people, but everyone is happy to join in. The High School that Pam visited had Merry Christmas posters and when she commented on that, the teacher said, "We are a secular society, so we celebrate all the religions in school. The children should know about all of them." Seems like a better attitude than our extreme separation of church and state where no one learns anything about anyone's religion.

In the two months since we have been here there have been Hindu, Moslem and Slkh holidays (Divali, Eid and Guru Nanak Dev's Birthday, respectively). All have been school and government closing days, and the week between Christmas and New Year will be also for the public schools.

And so, from Delhi, this is the Bakers wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!