Sunday, December 11, 2005

Merry Christmas!

I know I know...I am 14 days early...But I am finally beginning to feel the Christmas spirit around here. For the past 10 years, I had been immersed in the Christmassy vibe starting November 1st, which is when Montreal is all lit up with Christmas lights, shimmering with Christmas decorations, and when all you can hear in stores and malls is Christmas carols. I was also anticipating my Christmas vacation, where I'd fly back to the Emirates to spend a very Christmassy holiday on the beach.

Oh how things change in a year. Now that I've moved back to the Emirates, I am finding it hard to feel that warm Christmas spirit. No snow, no decorations (or barely any, I have not been to any malls lately although I hear some are decorated), no Christmas carols.

But we did finally get our Christmas tree in Abu Dhabi. And it's beautiful. It was my first time decorating our family tree in 10 years, and it was lots of fun. We did run into some trouble, but the result was well worth the effort.

About a month ago, my dad and I were in Ikea looking for a magazine tray for my sister, and we ended up buying half the Christmas decorations in the store! See, my dad decided that it was high time we got new decorations for our tree, and that we stick to one color: red. I agreed (I don't need convincing when it comes to buying new decorations!), and we ended buying everything from little red Santas, to shimmering stars.

The only problem was, we did not buy enough lights (we find this out yesterday of course). So my brother reluctantly volunteered to get us some extra ones. One glitch though: Ikea had run out of lights. But, he managed to find some nice lights in Carrefour. Great.

Well, not that great. He got home, and we find out that these were lights that were meant to be used outdoor (400 lights!!!). It took us about an hour to untangle them, and then another hour to figure out what the best way to install them on the tree would be. Finally, after a team effort, we managed to get all the lights on, and all the decorations on, and like I said, the results are stunning.

Oh, I almost forgot...I finally got my credit card today! Yaaaaaaaaay....I'll consider this an early Christmas gift from my bank, given that it's been almost 3 months I initiated the process of applying for a credit card. And now it's finally here! I must throw a party to celebrate!

1 comment:

sky said...

I don't think you're giving me enough credit for the Christmas lights, you must admit, I was the brain behind it all.

But I also have to admit, you were the brain behind the red decorations...very coooool.

And throw your goddamn party already!! Credit card, housewarming, Christmas, birthday...too many occasions!! U have no excuse.