Another Iraqi family has just settled in Providence. Shaydaa Ghalum and her husband, Adel Rahim Tuma, and their children, Mariam, 6, and Ahmad Rahim, 4, live upstairs from the Atheers.

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE — “Baba Noel” was due to arrive through the window this morning, bearing gifts for an Iraqi family that is celebrating its first Christmas in America.

For Andi Atheer, 10, there were Spider-man sheets, a Spider-man action figure and a battleship toy. For Alesen Atheer, 12, there was a cell phone — with a camera, of course — and a Vidal Sassoon curling iron.

Both children received bicycles from friends made since the family arrived as refugees three months ago. From their volunteer tutors, the children received a box full of games, including chess, checkers and Snakes and Ladders.

Their parents, Atheer Kiriacos Jajou and his wife, Baydaa Elshawie, wept joyful tears last week as they anticipated Christmas morning for their children.

“This is the first year they will receive this huge amount of gifts,” said Jajou. “This Christmas is an exceptional one.” He and his wife explained that Christians in Iraq celebrate Christmas in much the same way as Americans, only Santa Claus is known as “Baba Noel,” and he typically crawls through the window, not down the chimney.

“You always tell the children, ‘What kind of gifts do you dream of?’ ” Jajou said through an interpreter. “We say, ‘Baba Noel will hear your voice, and he will bring them to you.’ ”

The entire family is celebrating the warm embrace of a Christian community that has welcomed them since they arrived, as well as the volunteer tutors and the staff of the International Institute of Rhode Island, the organization that sponsored their resettlement.

Their new friends brought them a Christmas tree and papier-mâchÉ ornaments, Christmas stockings and a Santa Claus figure to hang on the door, and gifts. The tree, strung with a garland and glass ornaments, twinkled with lights.

“I feel as if I am newly born,” said Jajou. “I came here and could get my children to school,” he said, an impossibility in Iraq.

Jajou said he has but one wish of his own: the job for which he has applied. “If I work there, I can help my children in the future to achieve their dreams,” said Jajou, who was trained at a technical institute in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, an unexpected gift arrived on their doorstep last Thursday when Jacquline and Hanna Eshoo, friends from their village in Iraq whom they consider kin, visited from Buffalo, N.Y. After sharing Christmas with the family, the Eshoo sisters plan to move to Providence.

“There are no Iraqis in Buffalo,” said Jacquline. “We are always used to big families, and that’s why we feel alone, me and my sister, when we were in Buffalo. This depressed us. So we decided to come here and to live with Atheer’s family.”

Said Jacquline, “I’m so happy I’m going to have my first celebration of Christmas. When we were in Iraq, we didn’t have a lovely feeling. We were living in war and in an embargo. We didn’t sometime make the Christmas tree. Now I am so fond of these things.”

Her sister, Hanna, said, “I am happy. I am so happy I am here to celebrate this great day of Christmas.”

But her happiness is not complete, she said, since her family members remain in Baghdad. “We know the circumstances in Baghdad, and I’m sure nobody will celebrate there.”

Jajou and his family are the first Iraqi refugees to be resettled here since the 1990s, and among fewer than 2,000 Iraqis who have been allowed into the country since March. That is when the Bush administration reversed a policy that had blocked nearly all Iraqis from entering since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

They arrived on Sept. 19 from Turkey, where they had escaped to from Iraq five years ago. As Catholics in a largely Muslim country, the family qualified for refugee status because as members of a religious minority, they would be vulnerable to persecution.

On the day they arrived, Jajou told The Journal his family’s story.

“Twenty-five years in Iraq … it’s twenty-five years that I lost,” he said then. Jajou said he was happy to be in the United States, “because I can build a future for my family.”

He spoke of the scars he still bears from beatings he endured in Iraqi jails during Saddam Hussein’s regime. He said he was never charged with a crime.

“We left because we were running away from Saddam,” Jajou said. “For Christians, it was very difficult.”

His wife, Baydaa, said she suffered a miscarriage while Jajou was behind bars, and received frequent visits from Saddam’s men, who threatened to kill her husband if she did not pay “rashua,” or bribes, that were a way of life under Saddam.

So she paid.

In late 2002, the family made its way to Turkey. Baydaa and the children paid their way with “rashua.” Jajou walked for six days from northern Iraq to Turkey. They reunited in Istanbul, where they lived for five years in one room.

Because it was not possible for the children to attend school in either Iraq or Turkey — it was forbidden for them in Iraq, and too expensive in Turkey — the parents bought small book bags to motivate Alesen and Andi. They carried those bags when they arrived in Providence.

Since their arrival, all of the family members have become more fluent in English. Four volunteers tutor the parents and children.

Andi was recently selected as “Student of the Month” at his school.

Now the children have two new Iraqi friends, who were resettled in Providence by the International Institute last week. The family — Shaydaa Ghalum and her husband, Adel Tuma, and their children, Mariam, 6, and Ahmad Rahim, 4, are now living upstairs.

Though the new arrivals are Muslim, all joined together yesterday as the women cooked traditional Iraqi sweets. The children played and waited for Baba Noel, with visions of Spider-Man and cell phones in their heads.

Said Baydaa Alshawie, “I’m very, very happy. I don’t want anything for myself [for Christmas]. I wish great health for my family, and for everybody to be in good condition, always.”

kziner@projo.com