Season’s greetings from the UAE. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and peaceful festive season, a wonderful holiday if you are taking one, and of course a prosperous new year. I am sure we are all hoping that this coming year will be better than the one just ending, certainly from a financial point of view.
Whilst I am sure we won’t be having a white Christmas here, we may just have a wet and chilly one instead. I know that 18 degrees would not be considered cold anywhere else, but when the summer temperatures are often over 50, with high humidity, anything below 20 can feel a tad cool. We have had a few days of rain already, in fact on the 13th it rained most of the day, in places it even poured, and we had a month’s worth of rainfall in a single day in some places. The picture below I took whilst coming home, the off-ramp to our house was more like a river. It’s certainly nice staying-at-home weather (if your house is one of the one’s that doesn’t leak that is). Driving around in the rain is not fun, what with the poor drainage, and even worse wet-weather driving, you are sure to encounter.
The morning of the next day was beautiful and clear, all the dust washed from the air and buildings.
December IS a busy month in terms of holidays. The UAE celebrated it’s 38th birthday, or National Day, on the 2nd December (as I mentioned in my last post).
In particular, officials are concerned that motorists could use decorations to obscure number plates and thus avoid traffic fines. Ahmed bin Darwish, Head of Anjad patrol at Sharjah Police, said stickers should not block view from the back windscreen, nor should identification of the vehicle be obscured.
“We understand that people want to express their sense of loyalty and love for their homeland,” he said. “However, they should do it in a way that does not pose a risk to public safety.”
story from the Khaleej Times is here.
The 18th of December was Islamic New Year. This is the first day of Muharram, which is the first month in the Islamic, or Hijiri, calendar. Since the Islamic lunar calendar year is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year, Muharram (like Ramadan and other events) migrates throughout the seasons.
And lastly, on the Gregorian calendar at least, we have Christmas day and New Year’s day (although technically New Year’s day is next month). And no, with 4 days left til Christmas, I haven’t finished my shopping yet. In fact I am going to the Mall of the Emirates tonight to do just that. Stu bought my gift almost 2 months ago, so the pressure is on!
On Christmas day, we are having a very low key and simple lunchtime braai at home with a few friends. Last year we went all out, and spent most of the day before cooking and getting ready, and we (or should I say the chef) did not feel like doing that this year. Also Christmas Day falls on a friday so we haven’t got any extra time off either for all that food preparation. We have also decided to go out on New Year’s eve for a change this year, should be fun.
In my last post I mentioned that I was working with the teens on the FIFA Club World Cup opening ceremony. Well they did a fabulous job. I was going to insert the link to the clip on YouTube here but it seems that it has been removed from their server for some sad reason. So you will have to make do with a photo instead, courtesy of the Gulf News (see the rest here).
Enjoy your holidays, see you soon!