First published on this site in December, 2015. Memories of Christmas at Teec Nos Pos, deep in Dinétah, the Navajo Nation, are probably from several Christmases, but they've rolled together to become memories of a single Christmas when I was somewhere between the ages of 6-8.
When I was six, I attended the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) school on the hill above the mission at Teec Nos Pos. That was where I learned the Christmas song “Up on the Rooftop” with my Navajo classmates. I learned it in Dummitawry English, and that’s how I still sing it to myself around the house these days. “Gib en a dolly dat laffin’ an’ cryin’, One dat openin’ and closin’ his eye.” And so on. My mother tried to correct me when I came home singing it, but her corrections, as with so many attempts to correct my Nava-glish, just sounded wrong. And I was stubborn. After all, I’d learned it in school.