BETHLEHEM CHRISTMAS : This year will be different.

Bethlehem is only a twenty-minute drive south from Jerusalem, or a three-hour walk. The population is Palestinian: Christian and Muslim. Fifty years ago, Christians predominated, but now Muslims are the majority in Bethlehem. Here, during the last two months, violent clashes between soldiers and Palestinians have erupted almost daily, but have been localized mainly at Rachel's Tomb, in the northern part of the town. Seven Palestinians from the Bethlehem area have died, a far cry from our image of the Bethlehem of Christmas carols and crib scenes.

I know few Christians will come to the Holy Land for Christmas this year. At least 80 percent of scheduled groups canceled their pilgrimages at the beginning of October, and late last month the Palestinian Authority called off official celebrations in Manger Square. Coupled with the fact that the territories which belong to the Palestinian Authority had previously been cut off from Israel for security reasons, this will continue to diminish the Palestinians' resources.

But despite what now seems like low-level war between Israelis and Palestinians, life goes forward. I have lived in Jerusalem for thirty years and work as an Israeli-licensed tour guide. I know, better than most, that the Bethlehem of Christmas carols and brotherly love is a beautiful dream, that the reality is something very different. Still, one can catch a glimpse of that dream even in the midst of violence.

As a tour guide, I have found that arrangements for handling visitors have changed for the better since the Palestinian Authority took over Bethlehem in 1995. Previously, Manger Square, the space in front of the Basilica of the Nativity, was a parking lot filled with buses, noisy and polluting. On the south side of the square was the police station surrounded by a high barbed wire fence. Now the square has been cleared and the police station turned into a visitors' center. A huge underground parking lot down the hill from the square can accommodate all the buses that arrive. An escalator carries pilgrims partway up the steep slope. There is still quite a climb to the square, but the view of the basilica, the oldest in the Holy Land, is now unobstructed.

The Basilica of the Nativity has hardly changed since it was built by Justinian in the sixth century. It is situated over the cave where tradition places the birth of Jesus. Crusaders, in the twelfth century, added wonderful mosaics representing the ecumenical and local councils of the church and personages from the genealogies of Jesus according to Matthew and Luke. Wonderfully expressive angels adorn the high walls on both sides of the central nave, and on both sides of the sanctuary. Paintings on each column bordering the central nave depict saints who were venerated in medieval times. Today's pilgrims frown quizzically when I mention Saints Cataldus of Ireland, Onophrio with his long beard, his only covering, or Fusca.

Up until the recent troubles, there was little opportunity this great Jubilee year to admire any of this, much less the floor mosaics from the fourth century. The crowds were just too great. The mosaics were commissioned by Constantine when his mother, Helena, made her pilgrimage to the Holy Land and build the first church on the site. Justinian covered them with dirt and stones when he raised his church floor a couple of feet above the original floor, and they were only rediscovered in 1934 during the British Mandate. Now they are cleaned but can be seen only through wooden trap doors. For most of this year there were too many pilgrims to allow much of a view.

In the past year, once you had climbed to the square, you were confronted with a long line of people waiting to enter the basilica. Sometimes it took several hours to arrive at the church door, and you had to stand in line in the hot sun, patiently waiting to go down into the Grotto of the Nativity. The Palestinian Tourist Police were generally patient and polite.

When your turn to enter the basilica finally arrives, you must bend down before a low doorway and step over the raised threshold. The doorway is only a few feet high, to bar people riding into the church on donkeys or to prevent camels from wandering in. And you must remain alert to keep your place in line, lest other groups push in.

Eventually you reach the grotto, and go carefully down the dark steps with bated breath. First you look to the right, for the silver star under the altar. It marks the place of Jesus' birth. Then, on the left, down a few stairs to a tiny chapel, you see the place of the manger. There is barely time to glance at either, however, or to say a hasty prayer and kneel to touch the rock in the middle of the silver star, for the Greek Orthodox priest on duty, obviously bored by the whole procedure, is constantly shooing people up the exit stairs on the opposite side: "Keep moving!" "That's enough [praying]!" even "Get out!" If a Greek group happens to be in the grotto, however, the priest's tone softens considerably and they are allowed all the time they want. If you dare protest, the priest gets furious and you have to make a quick exit. Back upstairs in the basilica, the Armenians may be chanting, their priests wearing pointed hats, representing Mount Ararat (where Noah and his Ark came to rest after the flood), one of the glories of Armenia.

Whenever I try to arrive in the church early to avoid the crowds, there is an Armenian ceremony going on in the grotto. When I ask how long it will last, the usual answer is "Ten minutes." After half an hour, the chanting is finished, but then someone announces: "Cleaning time!" We sit down again as a Franciscan friar, a Greek Orthodox clergyman, and an Armenian (the three "biggies" according to the legal agreement set up by the Turkish authorities centuries ago to regulate relations among the different Christian groups in the holy places) tramp down the stairs with broom, feather duster, dustpan, and in a whirlwind of activity finish the cleaning in...ten minutes! We are right to have stayed because now the line behind us is all the way to the entrance of the church.

Traditional Christmas in North America is a cozy affair, with lights, a tree, presents, a crib scene. The donkeys and sheep in it leave no droppings, they aren't infested with lice, and it is blessedly quiet. Christmas in Bethlehem is cold and usually damp. If you manage to get a ticket for the Roman liturgy inside the Church of Saint Catherine (next to the basilica), there is always a long wait in the square, sometimes in the rain with people jostling one another and pushing. Otherwise, you can see the ceremony on huge screens set up in Manger Square.

I was astonished one year, wandering through the narrow streets in Bethlehem, to see a Santa being driven around the town, ringing a bell, followed by a crowd of shouting, jumping Palestinian children. No lineups at the Grotto of the Nativity for them! Latin Christmas is the most crowded, in contrast to Orthodox Christmas on January 7 or 8, Armenian Christmas on January 13. If you are not interested in the hassle, I suppose you can celebrate on any of these dates.

I much prefer the night walks to Bethlehem which have almost become, until now, a tradition among some pilgrims. The first time I walked to Bethlehem at Christmas was probably twenty-five years ago. We started off from Ein Karem near Jerusalem around 3 a.m., after midnight Mass and a snack. It was a lovely night, with a bright moon. There was no sound as we wound our way over the hills and down the valleys. An occasional dog barked as we crossed someone's olive grove. We arrived in Bethlehem around 6 a.m., at sunrise, appropriate for the occasion.

One year, on Christmas Eve, we joined a group that had spent a year and a half traveling across America and Europe to arrive in Bethlehem on this special day, as a protest against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The protest gathering was initiated by one of the chaplains of the American unit that had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. By the time they arrived in Bethlehem, people from many nations had joined the original group. The highlight of the prayer service in a cave in Shepherds Field was the witness of the army chaplain and a Japanese nun who had survived the nuclear blast.

Who will walk the hills of Bethlehem this Christmas? There are always students from the different biblical schools in Jerusalem as well as individual pilgrims. There may even be a group or two, if there is a hiatus in the violence. But no end seems likely right now.

Joan Poulin, a native of Saskatoon, Canada, has been a tour guide in Israel for thirty years.