1st Dubai Christmas Festival

We are all getting older but for some odd reason, the growing and maturing process halts for a whole month in time for Christmas. And surprisingly enough, all the stress stops as November ends, but it does come back the second week of January. So what’s left is the Christmas spirit, which basically just means that you’re in the mood to listen to happy songs and eat a lot. Or maybe that’s just me.

Last weekend, my family and I went to the first ever Dubai Christmas Festival. We heard all about it through a family friend. Any event that has the word ‘Christmas’ in it will always interest me, especially when I started living here in the UAE. It is a Muslim country, therefore they don’t celebrate Christmas. Tho unlike other Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE is more open to other traditions and religions. This is because only 22% of the whole population are locals and the rest are expats. Given that it was the first Christmas festival, I didn’t know what to expect. Will people actually come? Will the locals be there? Is that even allowed? I had too many questions.



Basically, the festival is only 3-days long, from 2PM to 11 PM and the Christmas Tree lighting starts at 6:00 PM. We arrived at 4:00 PM. Not exactly 4:00 tho cos we had to find the venue first. The map said it’s in front of the CNN building, naturally we were like “where the hell is that CNN building!” but we found it after a few blocks cos we heard children singing Christmas songs. By the time we arrived, the place wasn’t jam-packed yet but there were a lot of people already. Remember when I said I wondered if the locals are going to be there? Nope. 90% of the people there were British or American. And prolly 70% were kids. And 20% of them were barefoot.

The queue for the tickets was long but good thing we bought our tickets online so we just showed our receipt and we got in in less than 3 minutes. The place was huge. There were food stalls everywhere. The Christmas market was on the other side and the stage and the Christmas tree was really in front of the CNN building, they weren’t lying. So, we had to eat first cos we were hungry. We bought food from the first food stall we found, which was London Fish & Chips, cos it was hard to get around with all the children running. By then people started pouring in, children were in super high spirits, running around barefoot. They had face paint and Santa hats, balloons and all that jazz.

Around 5:30 PM a little show started, I thought the band was going to play some rockin’ Christmas songs but they didn’t. They were there for the children, apparently. But it was fun watching the kids enjoy the show. They had contests even. They had questions like “name all of Santa’s reindeers”, which I obviously had no idea, other than Rudolph, of course. It was fun. The band asked the children to make train noises and I will shamelessly admit that I joined in the fun. Chuga chuga, choo choo!!!!

By 6:00 they lit the Christmas tree and the place was full of people. Around that time the babies and toddlers were crying, prolly from being too tired and from all the noise. We went around the Christmas market for and sat on the grass for a bit. We then bought something to drink, I bought a blue slushie cos I got envious of the kid drinking a blue slushie earlier that day. Yes, I had blue tongue! And yes, it made me feel giddy.

Around 8 PM we went home to beat the traffic. It was a fun experience. It wasn't that Christmas-y but it's a huge improvement from having nothing at all. It was refreshing emerging into that kind of community, after living in a non-Christian community for too long. No matter where you spend your Christmas, it’ll always be happy if you spend it with your family. I have never spent a Christmas away from them and I don’t think I ever will. If I go and live on my own in the near (very near) future, I’ll make sure to go home, wherever my family is, on Christmas.