MY FIRST CHRISTMAS IN IRAN

A warm welcome to the December blogpost of Leslie Powell Ahmadi: a Black American Christian woman who met and married a man from Iran who was raised in a Muslim family.
I met Mahmoud at The Ohio State University, married him in 1988, and four years later relocated to Iran to start a new life with him. It was not an easy decision. But ultimately Mahmoud, our two young children, and I lived in the spectacular historic city of Isfahan from 1992 – 1996. And a lot happened during those four years. It’s all captured in the book I’ve written called The Road Between Hearts: A Memoir of a Black American Woman Discovering Iran (to be released in 2026).

I share below one of my fondest memories from the book (modified)—of my first Christmas in Iran, December 1993:

It was perhaps ten days before Christmas Day when, as if by clockwork, several women [from the neighborhood conversation class] arrived with bright eyes and a special greeting on their lips:

“Leslie Khanum, Eide shoma mobarak bashe,” meaning “Miss Leslie, may your holiday be blessed.”

Their words had just begun to take hold when the ladies switched back to English already. “So, where’s your Christmas tree?” they asked, half-curious, half-demanding. Before I could figure out what to say, or even where one gets a Christmas tree in Isfahan, the women began chattering among themselves. By the time class ended that day, we’d already planned to commemorate Christmas, the birthday of the beloved prophet Isa (Jesus) at a special party in place of class the following week. I would host, and Mrs. Hamidi, my friend Janet from England, was also to come as a special guest.
      
They brought fancy dishes and cakes from their kitchens. They brought cards they had purchased, cards they had made, cards their children had made. One of the girls from the summer class sent a tender drawing of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in a manger; another had created a two-foot poster of Baba Noel (“Father Christmas”), meticulously finished in red and white crayon. “You can see him again on television,” the ladies told me. “Baba Noel appears every year on a children’s show on Christmas Day. Don’t miss him,” they said earnestly.
       
After dinner, I invited them all to the living room, where they’d find what many were hoping to see: the sweet “Charlie Brown Christmas tree” that Mahmoud had cut from the roadside woods and set fittingly at the living room entrance. They cooed appreciatively at the tiny, unassuming, under-decorated tree.
        
When Baba and Mamán arrived from the village three days later, the house would still be cozy and fragrant from the leftover food, the cards and decorations, and all the memories of that special night when the ladies from conversation class welcomed Christmas to our neighborhood.

Pictured Above: Baba, Mamán, Mahmoud, and me! And the greenery in the background? It’s our tiny, unassuming “Charlie Brown Christmas tree” (December 1993)

​And just as everyone above said to me, so I say to all who also want to receive it: "Eide shoma mobarak bashe!"—"May your holiday be blessed!”

​Very warmly, Leslie