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A Christmas Night in Turkey
Christmas night is quiet in Turkey.
There are no bells, no hymns — only misunderstood decorations and curtains drawn too early, as if the city itself is pretending not to notice the date.
In Istanbul, on the third floor of an aging apartment block, a coal stove glowed softly.
In the corner of the living room stood a Christmas tree — bought from a mall last year, its lights never turning on at the same time.
At 2:17 a.m., the power flickered.
When it returned, there was someone else in the room.
A red costume.
A plastic mask.
A cotton beard.
Santa Claus.
Ayşe’s first thought was that it had to be a joke.
In Turkey, Christmas is always a joke — a borrowed costume, worn without belief.
The man didn’t speak.
He stood in front of the tree, adjusting the ornaments one by one,
as if he had always lived there.
“Who is that?” Ayşe whispered.
Her husband didn’t answer.
Because the man had slowly turned his head.
He wasn’t looking through the eye holes of the mask.
He was watching.
“Ho ho ho,” the man said —
but the voice sounded recorded,
flat, mechanical, like joy learned secondhand.
Ayşe stood up.
The man took a single step closer.
The beard shifted.
From beneath the mask fell not sweat,
but dust.
“The joke is over,” Ayşe said.
The man stopped.
Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a small, square gift.
A tag was tied to it.
It read:
“In Turkey, Christmas gifts do not enter through the door.”
At that moment, the apartment buzzer rang.
Long.
Insistent.
The man turned his head toward the door.
Then back to Ayşe.
“Some of them,” he said softly,
“don’t come down the chimney either.”
He removed the mask.
There was no face underneath.
Only absence.
The next morning, the building had only one story to tell:
Someone dressed as Santa Claus had been seen in the stairwell that night.
No one could explain why the gift under the tree
was never opened.
Ayşe could.
Because some gifts are not meant to be opened.
Some exist only to remind us:
There is no Christmas in Turkey.
But its imitations
can be far more dangerous than the real thing.
EzIQ
