It’s possible to do Christmas in the UAE, but it takes a bit of extra effort. It’s not like you’re going to find Christmas-tree lots on every corner.

Malls may pipe in “wintry” music and create tableaux adorned with some sort of plastic snow (the UAE loves the concept of winter, never having actually experienced it) and will even put up weird figures of four-legged animals that perhaps are meant to represent reindeer …

So, three Christmases into our stay in Abu Dhabi, we decided to make a little more effort on the “festive” side of things.

Muslims don’t do Christmas. Of course. They recognize Jesus as an important religious figure, but many Gulf Arabs don’t celebrate (or even clearly know) their own birthdays (as our “cultural adviser” Ali Al Saloom notes in the second item of his piece here), so why should they celebrate someone else’s?

There is, however, a vague yearning to follow the rest of the western world in this exposition of winter tropes — the fake snow, some lights, the flogging of winter clothes in a country that certainly doesn’t need them.

And, I am convinced that while we are fairly deeply into what is considered “Asia” by mapmakers, the Arabs (here, anyway), see themselves as more a part of “the West” than they do the rest of Asia.

India is considered exotic, even though it is just a few hours away by plane, and with 2 million Indians living in the UAE … and China and Japan and Korea are just not on the cultural radar, even if they are Asians (as are Emiratis). Maybe it’s the monotheism thing, but my experience has been that Gulf Arabs are oriented west and north, and not east or south.

Wow. Got off on a tangent there. Just trying to explain why a Muslim country should be OK with merchants making reference to “the festive season” … because it’s mostly about this idea of celebrations at the end of the year, like they do in Paris and London.

So, back to the apartment. The first year, in the Tiny Apartment, we bought a string of little flashing lights. Same thing, the second year.

This year … I was in the  Lulu “hypermarket” in the new Mushrif Mall, and I saw someone walking around with a conical little tree, green, like a mini-Christmas tree … and I thought, “Hey, maybe we can use that as a tree in the apartment, and then put it out on the tiny patio the rest of the year.”

Leah went to the Lulu at Wahda Mall today … and found two versions of the little “tree”(an indoor Cypress)  near the checkout stand. Already potted. Only two choices, though, and she took the smaller because the taller was leaning hard to starboard, and paid 125 dirhams (about $34!) for this live tree. Which, turns out, is really much more like a bush. But still.

She also bought another string of lights, and four silver stars, and we also have the Christmas ornaments we have been sent (below), while living here. When I got home from an editing shift at The National, I found a spot for the two-foot tree on a shelf, wrapped it with lights … and we have something resembling a decorated Christmas tree (as can be seen, above).

It’s a start. We made an effort. No one will confuse our apartment with a “Santa at the North Pole” presentation at a mall, but it’s a bit of the season.

What we will do with this bush/tree … I don’t know. It thrives in temps of 75 Fahrenheit, which means it will be staying inside with us year-round. Hmmm. A little bit of Christmas all year round?