CHRISTMAS HIT CAIRO like an arctic blizzard last month: near-instantly, (not quite) unexpectedly and affecting everything in the area. It’s on the trees, around the windows, in the hotels and throughout the shops. Once-empty window frames were trimmed with glimmering garlands and lively lights, while neighborhood flower shops sprouted fields of red poinsettias and forests of live spruce trees — and even the odd cut Douglas Fir.

The Christmas contagion had arrived. It wasn’t a religious holiday for the 90 (or so) percent of the population that identifies itself as Muslim, but it was certainly a secular reason to hold a party or trim a tree. Once the province of foreign residents and the nation’s relative handful of Western Christians (the vast majority of Christians in Egypt follow the Orthodox tradition), Christmas today is more of a week-long event.

Not even the three-year-old declaration of Orthodox Christmas (January 7) as a national holiday has dampened enthusiasm for celebrating from December 25 through December 31, a period that has morphed into a week-long secular break.

Khaled Mohammed has been selling Christmas trees at Atlantis Rose flower shop in Maadi for about 20 years now. His belief that Christmas is becoming increasingly popular isn’t based on the rash of lights and decorations, but on his sales figures.

“The first year, I sold only two Christmas trees — one to a foreigner and one to a local. Last year, I sold 200,” he says.

More families are buying trees, more homes are lit with lights, and more stores and shop shelves are lined with Christmas goodies. Herve Majidier, country director for multinational hypermarket chain Carrefour, sees it as his duty to provide festive holiday merchandise to a population that is obviously wanting it. Over the three years that Carrefour has been in business in Egypt, Majidier has noticed a significant difference in the holiday season.

Even small shops are making it easy for consumers to find festive decorations

“Even in the subcategory of shops, like the small-sized supermarket I can see Christmas decorations, even though a very limited range. They have some items. They have some candles, they have some lights and they have some bulbs. It seems there is a market for that, but this was not apparent three years ago. Two years ago it [got] bigger and year after year it is increasing,” Majidier explains.

Majidier may not have gone so far as to create a Sears-like “Christmas Wishbook,” but his December flyers were Christmas-themed and emphasized toys, decorations and holiday trinkets. Other retailers, such as the popular Fun Days toy shop, dedicated entire sections to singing Santas, artificial Christmas trees and decorations of every kind.

“Compared to a few years ago, more people now — even little kids — know that this time of year is Christmas,” Mohammed adds. “Before, people saw some lights and decorations and knew it was the holiday for Christians, but now people are aware and know it is Christmas time.”

“Surprisingly, in the past few years it has been Egyptians, not foreigners, who have been buying most of the trees,” points out Mohammed. “But foreigners don’t buy as much now because they think we’re trying to rip them off when in actuality they don’t think about the shipping costs. This is Egypt, we can’t grow those trees here.”

At least part of Christmas’ rising popularity can be attributed to tens of thousands of middle- and upper-class Egyptians who attend Western-oriented private schools, where Christmas, Western New Year’s and even Hanukkah are taught — and where Christmas, in particular, is celebrated by foreign teachers and Egyptian students alike at “New Year’s” concerts and plays.

The fact that the Western holiday season has overlapped with El-Eid Al-Adha in the past two years has also helped create the notion of a secular ‘holiday season.’

According to Basel Safi, a Maadi resident, “It isn’t just for the foreigners and the upper-class anymore — you see signs of Christmas throughout Cairo. Nowadays, people get a regular tree if they are poor and can’t afford a real Christmas tree because they still want to take part.”

Amira Ahmed, an Egyptian-American working in the development field, is both a devout Muslim and emphatically pro-Christmas. “I don’t actually celebrate Christmas, but I love everything about it! In college we would [gather] a bunch of us Egyptians — and we’re Muslims — and we would have a Christmas party and would maybe invite two or three study abroad students who couldn’t go home for Christmas. We’d get a tree and decorate it and have dinner. We wouldn’t necessarily exchange gifts, but we’d get all dressed up and enjoy it, you know, why not?

“You can take joy in the more commercial aspects of Christmas because it’s fun, and who doesn’t like lights and the colors of green and red and gold together? It’s not something that you have to celebrate in a religious sense, it’s something that you can just be a part of,” she adds.

Ahmed returned to Egypt six years ago after spending much of her childhood in the United States.

“The first years I was back, I was kind of depressed because there weren’t any decorations at the malls or in the office spaces, but I think over maybe the past four or five years it’s been getting, well, I don’t want to say people are capitalizing on the season as much as they do in the US, but it’s getting better. I sense it more at the mall or on the radio, especially from the private radio stations. They really play up Christmas music and we didn’t have that before, so it’s nice to hear those songs. It gets you in the mood.”

Just don’t hold your breath while dreaming of a white Christmas in Cairo.  et