You might wonder how the Christian holidays are handled in a Muslim country where about 80% of the population is foreign. Christmas in Dubai is all about the shopping. The malls are veritable shrines to the Christmas (shopping) spirit. This year the season coincides with the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) - the emirate's answer to it's dwindling oil reserves. The pic is one of the Christmas tree at the Wafi City shopping mall. At this mall there was a Santa grotto where you could take a photo with the big guy and follow a treasure hunt for a chance to win a sleigh full of presents (sleigh not included). This was pretty savvy on their part. In looking for the clues, I discovered some shops that I had never seen before.Christmas day is not a national holiday, so if you want to spend it at home with the family, you have to take the day off. Same goes for boxing day - that British holiday for which noone can explain the name. All of the hotels and restaurants have special Christmas buffets which seem to be a pretty popular alternative to home cooking.
We opted for the home cooking. After the excessive lunch, we walked it off along the beach near the Burj Al Arab. We watched the barges peacefully blowing sand onto the "World" island project ...
and the sun setting behind the world's most expensive hotel.Now that Christmas is done, we can go out and take advantage of the DSF sales and do the shopping thing all over again. Come to think of it, Christmas in Dubai is a lot like it is in other, Christian parts of the world.
