One of the newer arrivals here at The National came to this realization while speaking with someone back in the States.

“Today is Christmas, or as it is known in Abu Dhabi … Tuesday.”

This was said at the office, where a plurality of staffers were working, as they would on any Tuesday during the year. Not a holiday here.

Which opens the debate of … How much Christmas is enough?”

In the U.S., we have had more than enough Christmas for a very long time now. At least half a century.

I am old enough to remember when advertising for Christmas did not begin until the day after Thanksgiving. Now that’s just a major Christmas shopping day. “Black Friday.”

When do the first Christmas-themed ads appear now? Sometime in October, certainly. Eventually headed towards Labor Day?

Something to be said, then, for December 25 arriving as … Tuesday. If the date matters, you have plenty of time to prepare for whatever it is you want to prepare for. In this case, gifts sent to someone back home, an open house here in the UAE a few days before.

In recognition of the significant chunk of staff who hail from the West, the newspaper delivered a Christmas dinner to The National newsroom at about 5:30.

Three turkeys, vegetables, roasted half-potatoes, a bit of stuffing (still inside the birds), lots and lots of gravy and cranberry sauce, and actual silverware and plates to put everything on. All prepared at a big hotel here in the city.

It was a fine gesture, and some excellent turkey. The white meat was moist, always a sign of a well-prepared bird. I had most of a drumstick; much of it fell away as I was unable to cut off the whole of it with my butter knife.

We all, 40 or 50 of us, ate at our desks, the newspaper anything but put to bed, but time made to have our turkey and, perhaps, think of loved ones far away.

Sometimes, “Tuesday” is enough Christmas. On this occasion, it was.