Christmas joy dampened in Bethlehem and elsewhere
BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK » Bethlehem on Thursday ushered in Christmas Eve with a stream of joyous marching bands and the triumphant arrival of the top Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, but few people were there to greet themas the coronavirus pandemic and a strict lockdown dampened celebrations in the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
Similar subdued scenes were repeated across the world as the festive family gatherings and packed prayers that typically mark the holiday were scaled back or canceled altogether.
In Australia, worshippers had to book tickets online to attend socially distanced church services. The Philippines prohibitedmass gatherings and barred extended families from holding traditional Christmas Eve dinners. Traditional door-todoor children’s carols were canceled in Greece.
Pope Francis was set to celebrate Mass in a nearempty Vatican service early in the evening as strict new curfew rules were going into effect.
Italians lined up at bakeries, fish markets and grocery stores for items needed to prepare Christmas Eve dinners, even as government officials begged families to limit their “cenone” gatherings to no more than two people outside the main family unit. The government this week barred travel between regions, and police were out Thursday enforcing the restrictions.
Celebrations elsewhere in Europe were canceled or greatly scaled back as virus infections surge across the continent and a new variant that may be more contagious has been detected.
In Athens, Christmas Eve was eerily silent. In normal times, voices of children singing carols while tinkling metal triangles can be heard all day. The decades-old custom, in which children go house to house and receive small gifts, was banned this year. Groups of childrenmanaged to honor the tradition by singing to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis by video link.
Throughout the pandemic, one of the hardesthit churches in New York City has been Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan. Church leaders say more than 60 members of the congregation — which numbered about 800 before the pandemic — have died of COVID-19, almost all of them part of the community of some 400 who attended services in Spanish.
Despite their own heartbreaks, congregation members — many of them immigrants — donated coats, scarves and other winter clothes for more than 100 migrantminors at a detention center in Manhattan.