Samir Jajo, 23, spent the days before Christmas shopping for luggage on the main commercial street in the middle-class Karada neighborhood of central Baghdad.
"I am leaving for Syria," Jajo said. "I am going to celebrate Christmas there. It is too dangerous to celebrate it here."
A few parishioners attended Mass on Christmas Eve at St. Joseph Chaldean Church in Baghdad. Security concerns forced the cancellation of many evening services in Iraq's capital; others were held in the morning.
(Samir Mizban -- AP)
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Sara Toma, 28, a Christian schoolteacher, said she would leave her husband behind in Baghdad and travel to Syria, too, even though the journey was dangerous.
"But it is better than staying here," she said. "I would not be able to go to church on Christmas Eve."
Adel Warda, 48, who owns a small market, said such fear was new for Iraqi Christians.
"We never felt like this during Saddam's time. No one was bothering us. It was safe. We did not have any car bombs, explosions, attacks on churches or mosques. I do not care if he was bad or not, but he never bothered us," Warda said. "The Americans said they came to fight the terrorists, but in fact the terrorists came when [the Americans] came here and they started fighting. Both sides destroyed our country."
The thin-faced priest at the Virgin Mary Church said he would find a way to deliver a message of hope for the people who dared to attend Christmas Mass.
"This Christmas will be difficult," the 35-year-old priest said. "People are dying every day. Every house has casualties. Every house is crying, and the church cannot celebrate when people are crying. Our happiness will only be the birth of Jesus Christ and the hope that he will bring peace back to our country."
He clasped his hands and smiled reassuringly. "I am not afraid," he said. "I am sitting here. I am not frightened."
He declined to give his name.
Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
