Stick on democracy and nativity scenes

There are moments in the flurry of activity leading up to Christmas when you wish it wasn't happening. As I sat trying to wrap up three Panetones (don't try it) at 11pm last night for the Lozenge's teachers from all the class - I sat back to inspect my work and realised it looked like Rashimi had done it. In fact, maybe I could use that as the excuse, I thought to myself. At the 11th hour the school asked if I could film the school nativity play. Never again! Even the widest of lenses failed to capture the diminutive shepherds at the sides of the extra broad stage. And with one camera it's hardly like you can achieve the zooms, pans and dolly shots most discerning parents will be expecting. The Lozenge told me he was a 'tholdier' and I wondered where they fitted into the Christmas story. It turned out he was an 'Eastern Dancer' in sucker tight black lycra with a pillar box red Fez. A couple of steps out with the other Eastern Dancers - I could hear the cogs turning in his head as he concentrated on the moves. Then they sat cross legged on the stage looking bovine and yawning while all the girls stole the show in winged chiffon. Still, it was a rite of passage - the first of (perhaps, many?) stage performances for the Lozenge. St Grace and Rashimi came along too - J sadly away - and not a squeak emanated from the normally verbose little brother. Star struck it seems. I heard one little girl in the audience ask: 'Mummy, does Mary came from Amaryica?'

We can't move for nativity scenes in the house. The Lozenge is now particularly good at drawing camels.

The first term of school is over and the Lozenge has a bunch of lovely little friends, and can now write his name. Last week, one of his favourites - 'Vera from Thweden' came over to play. They had their tea together - and as the Lozenge's back was turned, preparing the pomegranate and yoghurt for their pudding, Rashimi snuck off his seat to go and twirl one of Vera's blonde pigtails with a sticky hand. 'Next time, can Vewa stay for bathtime too?' Rashimi suggested.

One morning St Grace was looking uncharacteristically grey and downcast. It turned out that the Jordanian authorities had declined her 12 year old son's visa from Sri Lanka on the grounds that he wasn't travelling to Jordan with his parents. Since St Grace and her husband are based here - there was nothing they could do to convince them in time for his Christmas visit to see them here. J and I agreed she must go back to see him for Christmas instead, with her husband, so we arranged her plane fare so they can all be together in Sri Lanka for 10 days. The shine came back to her face and I can feel the excitement building. The curry, the heat, the palm trees, her only son. When I see how much love she puts into caring for our boys, I understand how much of it must be replacing the time lost with her own boy. She and her husband are making the ultimate sacrifice by living and working here to afford him more opportunities than they had. She told me, 'I went to the church [Holy Sepulchre] and I was asking God what I should do. And now my prayer has been answered  - and only 3 hours after!'

My working life has been flat out, but I've now reached what feels like a beautiful flat plain before the next hillock on the 2015 horizon, having finished off the short film about Gaza for the hospital and another for Save the Children. I've been all around the West Bank, working in villages near Hebron, near Ramallah and near Nablus.  A beautiful time of year to film - with icy yellow/blue skies, mists and golden leaves, with incongruous greenery sprouting after all the rain.

The latest project took me to a little village near Nablus where Nawal, an 8 year old girl is still psychologically recovering from an attack on her family's house by the Israeli military during the summer. She's been in counselling for 3 months, and as we interviewed her about her experiences, the wonderful Palestinian counsellor, who looked at the pretty little girl with eyes full of love, warned: 'Please don't ask her about the events of the night of the attack. It's taken me 3 months to get to this point with her.'

In August, the Israeli military shot and killed a 24 year old Palestinian man who lived next door to Nawal's family, and demolished their house. In so doing, they also destroyed most of Nawal's home with shells and bullets. Each family member suffered serious shrapnel wounds and they all thought they would die that night as the shots rang around their ears. They've rebuilt their house, but received no compensation for it and are now heavily in debt.

Nawal's mother and her youngest child on the roof of their rebuilt house

None of this stopped Nawal's mother from preparing enormous dishes of rice with almonds and chicken for us before we started work, followed by thick Arabic coffee and chocolates. It was what we needed as we'd had to leave Jerusalem at 7am in order to avoid check point trouble. The Palestinian Authority Settlement Minister, Ziad Abu Ein, had been killed by the Israeli military the day before - while he was planting olive trees in peaceful protest to the occupation. We drove past the site - protected by Israeli military vehicles ready to stamp on the next uprising.

Perhaps I'd understand all these stories more if we were in Iraq or Syria where there is a real war being waged. But Israel claims to be a democracy. Ministers are killed while tree planting, and girls of 8 years old cling to their bleeding parents while soldiers' bullets rain down...in a 'democratic country'.

Nawal is a deeply eloquent and gentle little girl who seems to have used her natural intelligence and lightness of spirit to get over the trauma, with the help of the loving counsellor who works full time and has 4 of her own children. On my way out of their garden, looking onto a beautiful view of their village, she picked me a delicately perfumed, velvety red rose which the dwarves plunged their button noses into when I arrived home. How stark the contrast of the lives of these children, I thought as I pictured her wardrobe door riddled with bullet holes, and our dwarves' peaceful bedroom with every safety blanket they could ask for.

I travelled back to Jerusalem with a young Palestinian lady from Hebron who translated for me in Nawal's house. She's one of 10 children, and wears an immaculately tied headscarf. I asked her if she worshipped in a mosque, 'Me? Nooo!! I'm not religious at all. I just wear the headscarf to keep my Mum happy,' she laughed.

Tomorrow we leave this extraordinary land, full of confusion and disfunction, but beautiful all the same, for our Northern European breakaway which one day we might call home. But for now is a holiday land. The dwarf snowsuits are on order, and we're hoping for some icy flurries to blast us into 2015 and 'beginaginMcFinnagin' as Rashimi and the Lozenge would say.

After nearly a year of life here, there are now moments when J and I have time to observe. The dwarves being that little bit more independent in themselves and happy to tinker about without us in the epicentre all the time. We are grateful for the tiny pauses to witness the results of recent team work.

The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan put it wonderfully in a diary from 1975: 'I caught K's [his wife's] eye across the lunch table (roast beef and burgundy) and felt for almost the first time that we were a family - i.e.  that each had tough and durable wires of sympathy connecting him/her with the other thre that he/she would never feel for any other person.'

We're looking forward to beginning again in this city after some Christmas capers.

Happy holidays!