Decorations aim to make a difference
Syrians use Christmas tree to send messages of hope, end to conflict
DAMASCUS — Instead of the more traditional baubles and tinsel, a Christmas tree in the old city of Damascus is festooned with the wishes of people for 2018.
During the seven years since the beginning of the war, Syrians have clung to hope in order to endure the difficulties and pass through the tough times the conflict has brought.
Not far from the war’s front line, a Christmas tree has been set up in a popular coffee shop in Damascus.
The place is warm and cozy with old stone walls, a wooden chandelier and coffee tables made from tree trunks, with the flickering flame of candles, lending the place a mystical shimmering glow.
People have written their wishes on colored scraps of paper and pinned them on the tree’s branches.
Pink, yellow, red and blue pieces cover the tree, and the most prominent wishes were about tough farewells and the “wish you were here” hopes.
“My wish this year is like every year: May God protect you and make this time pass quickly so that we could return and sit down in the same place ... I will miss you so much ... Your fiance,” one wish read, written on a pink piece.
Another wish read: “I hope to have you back in the new year, to be back again here, to live together and write the next year’s wish together ... I love you.”
The tree also saw an interaction between people, as some people were supporting each other’s wishes.
One man wished for a quick return to his home in Aleppo and another person wrote on the same paper: “I hope you can have your peace back home.”
Bernar Joma, the owner of the coffee shop, said he came up with the idea and called it the “tree of hope because the least we can do in this war is to hope and this is the only right that cannot be taken away from us”.
‘All of us have hopes’
“All of us have hopes, those outside Syria hope to come back to the country while those inside hope to leave the country ... people are wishing for different things and it is a healthy way of expression,” he added.
Ghada, a woman in her early 30s, brought a photo of her fiance and hung it on the tree, writing: “May God bring you back to me safely.”
“My fiance has been a soldier for four years and every year I wished his return to continue our lives together ... This war must end one day,” she said.
Hussam, a regular customer of the coffee shop, said that last year he hoped to return to his home in the countryside of Damascus and his wish came true.
“This year I am hoping to see my brother who left the country and resettled in Germany two years ago,” he said.
Twenty-nine-year-old Raghad was pessimistic as she seemed to have given up on hope.
“I think hope is a luxury and it is heartbreaking when it does not come true ... I have hoped for a lot of things and they were never answered, so I just stopped it to avoid more disappointment,” she said.