Our 2nd Christmas in Dubai

It might be my imagination, but there seemed to be much more Christmas spirit in Dubai this year. The malls were all decorated and Christmas decorations were available everywhere. Santa was even at one of the malls. Obviously he is very popular because the line up to visit was huge. Zoe and Chase opted to send an email to him instead.

It was "business as usual" around here on December 25th. However, since it fell on a Friday (the first day of our weekend and the day of prayer) I was able to be home all day with the family. Malls were open, but traffic was light.

Our Christmas morning began at 5:01 am when Zoe came sneaking into our room to let us know that Santa had been and to share a description of what the presents looked like. Morning coffee was not an option before gift opening!



After the excitement of gift opening, the kids settled in to play. We enjoyed the sights and sounds of the thunderstorm with our morning coffee. It looked like we were in for a day of rain, but it cleared and we had beautiful blue sky and a temperature in the mid 20's.

One of Chase's gifts was a remote control Ferrari. After the battery charged a bit, we headed to the top floor our our parking garage to let him try it out. Appparently it has too much power to be used in the apartment.

As usual, Rick prepared an amazing Christmas dinner complete with most of the fixings. We invited a friend to join us and we had a lovely festive day.

On December 27th, Rick went to our local grocery store where they were playing Christmas carols and finally had in their full stock of turkeys!!

Zoe and Chase are still on a break from school. At the college, it is end of semester so the students are busy with exams and so I have a chance to try and get caught up.

Terry Fox in Dubai

On Friday morning, we took part in the Terry Fox Run here in Dubai. We were so surprised to find out that the event takes place here. I know it is supposed to happen in September, but the weather is better in December.

According to the newspaper there were over 5000 people there and they raised more than 500,0000Dhs. In the many years that they have held the event in Dubai, more than 7 million Dhs has been raised.

UAE National Day

It's that time of year again. I have never witnessed national pride like they have here. Apparently the fireworks in Abu Dhabi were even bigger this year than last. But, after our experience last year, we decided to stick closer to home this year. We drove to Mamzar which is normally about a 5 minute drive from our house.


We left home at about 6:00 - long before the majority of the crowds - but there were still traffic jams. Our plan was to park somewhere and watch the activity from the sidelines. After moving inches every few minutes, Rick decided to take the sand route - over the sidewalk and into the field. We found an empty parking lot and settled in to watch. Chase was especially excited to spray the vehicles with the can of snow that he had. I think that he ended up getting sprayed more than he got anyone else.

It was no concern that he quickly emptied his can - passers by kept handing over cans of silly string and snow, not to mention balloons, feather boas, candy filled flags and even a gift box.


Things seemed a bit calmer than we experienced last year - not so many revving engines and burn outs - but it was still early. There were still the roving groups with cans of snow. They would mob a car, lift up the wipers and spray the entire front windshield with snow. Then they would check each door to see if they could spray inside! Others were literally stopping traffic and dancing in the streets. Cyclists, roller bladers and pedestrians wove through traffic in both directions.

When it was time to go, we headed back through the field and were able to avoid most of the mayhem.