Society

If the great Paruryr Sevak wrote a poem entitled “Suggestion for the calculators of the world…” during our time, then maybe he would ask for those calculators to count how much meat Armenians eat on New Years, or better yet, how much of the “Capital” (by the way, what do Armenians mean when they say Stalichni: do they mean Washington, Yerevan, or Stepanakert?) salad Armenian women make so that they can fill it in the trashcan a couple of days after New Years’. Cynicism has come to the point where the “New Armenian” women compete with one another on who will have the most exotic meals set on their table. For example, the other day someone told me that she is going to make a barbecued crocodile for New Years’. I would like to recall some Armenian national proverbs for those women: “One who doesn’t see everything tries to see it through another’s eyes”, or how about “The sear of a donkey is worse than that of a horse.” I must say that this last one depicts the reality in which we live in.

This year, the office workers are showing generosity to Armenia’s forests. Either they have gone to Russia and seen some signs and understood that based on their intellectual capacities, or each one of them has gone to Dubai instead of Russia and brought so many artificial Christmas trees that most of them will not even get sold if no fir trees grow in Armenia, Georgia and other countries (They had probably heard that there are more than 10,000,000 Armenians around the world, but they did not know that only 2,000,000 of them live in Armenia).

If we try and guess what our compatriots want from Santa Claus this year, then we get the following picture:

Some children want Santa Claus to bring their fathers who are abroad to Armenia, some want many toys and tasty candies, and others simply don’t believe in Santa Claus and want too much from their fathers for Christmas.

Some young people will wish for love and peace, others will want a “Green Card”, while the more pragmatic will want a groom or bride who has a rich father.

Women will ask Santa Claus to keep them beautiful and attractive, so that the New Years may alleviate them a little and so that their children can grow healthy. However, there are women who want everything and a lot of it.

As for men, as always, they will wish for their wives’ devotion, a job, and lots of money despite the social status (and pray to God for them to work that money and not get it from somewhere else).

New Years’ is one of the biggest Christian holidays (even though I am certain that very few people know about that). We always say that we are the most ancient Christian people. Besides eating the great food set on our tables this year, I would like for us all to be happy with what we have, be optimistic about the future and not only celebrate Christmas, but rather, the Birth of Christ, and remember that Christ was born to save our souls. But that doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want and He will save us.

Optimistic for the year 2005, A.K.