Expatriates celebrating their first Christmas in UAE miss family

Dubai: Expatriates celebrating their first Christmas in the UAE are looking to recreate some of the celebratory spirit of the season back home.

The predominant aspect of Christmas they said was the getting together of family and friends, lavish meals and the joy and verve of togetherness with loved ones.

Imrana Javed, 21, from Pakistan, has many fond memories of Christmas spent back home in Islamabad. Along with her seven siblings, she there would be many happy hours of cleaning and decorating the house for the occasion. “I would always love the build-up to Christmas as my mother started to prepare sweets a week ahead of the day while we four sisters set about cleaning and decorating the house. My four brothers would buy the fire crackers and the Christmas tree accompanied by my dad,” she said.

“It is the happiest occasion I know of when our family gets together with the extended family and we go for the Christmas eve mass in our local church. Following that is a lovely Christmas eve dinner and the next day, it’s a time to open the gifts and have a Christmas lunch. I am missing all that,” she says.

Imrana is working as a beauty parlour assistant in Dubai and lives in a PG accommodation. “Christmas this year is going to be lonely,” she says. “But my cousin here has asked me over for Christmas. If I get leave, I might go. I look forward to some time with his family,” she says.

Pearl Siloposo (30), a Filipina, is in Dubai on a two-week tourist visa and has landed a job as a nail technician in a beauty salon. Therefore, she is not going home and is missing her family. “Christmas is a special time,” says Pearl, a mother of two who hails from Imuse City, Cabute, in the Philippines. “We go door-to door singing Christmas carols and get gifts and money from the community for spreading the Christmas cheer. My children live with my parents, four sisters and two brothers and we have a lot of fun during the festival. My mother bakes cakes, makes sphagetti and meat balls, we girls go shopping and have a full two-week celebration,” says Pearl, who is bracing herself for a lonely Christmas.

“I have only one cousin [in the UAE] and am likely to usher in the festival with her and her husband. But if I am working on that day, my colleagues and I will order some food,” said Pearl who is anticipating a busy time and does not hope to be able to take the day off leave. “I will speak to my family on Skype after work as I am missing them so much,” she adds.

Sabrina Di Palma, a South American originally from Adelaide, Australia, moved to the UAE in April 2015. She usually celebrated Christmas with at least 30 family members, and this is her first Christmas away from home.

“I am going to miss the family buzz as my mother, my brother’s family and a large extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles always spend Christmas together. The most important aspect is the Christmas eve dinner and we get together a couple of days before with every member of the family contributing to the big day. We cook together and there is so much fun, laughter and love going around. Going by South American traditions, we open our gifts at the stroke of midnight, I am going to miss all that,” says Sabrina, who is planning to go out for a Christmas eve dinner with other friends who are alone this festive season and then follow it up with a traditional Christmas day brunch on December 25.

Amanda and Tayseer Razzouk from Salt Lake City, Utah, are determined to recreate a traditional Christmas for their three kids aged 2, 3 and 5 as they celebrate back home in the US. “Ty and I have decided to call in about nine friends with their families. These are all the new friends we recently made here,” says Amanda, who is a homemaker and is planning a fun feast with some traditional roast, finger foods and burgers.

“I love cooking and am going to prepare all the food at home on Christmas eve. The family plans to go for an evening mass and come home to get into their Christmas pyjamas, bake cookies for Santa Ana later watch a Christmas movie with friends. This is how we traditionally celebrate Christmas in the US and I plan to do the same with family and friends here,” says Amanda.

Liam and Carla Trouthton from Manchester, UK, moved to Dubai in February 2015 and the thing they miss most about Christmas is the presence of family and snow. “We are trying to recreate the Christmas spirit here with a little bit of traditional baking and having a family atmosphere to usher in the festival. I guess we cannot compensate for family and the traditional Christmas market, but we are trying to get into the festive spirit as much as we can,” said Liam.

Erin and Kevin Mattoram from Washington State, US, are doing their best to recreate most of the festive traditions for their children, Max, 7, and Jet, 2, for Christmas. “The biggest thing about Christmas is family,” said Erin. “We obviously cannot recreate that but we have decided to stick to all other traditions. So I began baking Christmas cookies a week before. The first batch is done and the second one is underway. On Christmas eve, we will first go to church and back home, I will be making turkey rolls with a special shrimp dip as our family does always for Christmas. Then we will open our gifts at midnight and go to bed hoping that Santa will come by and have his cookies and milk we offer him.”

On December 25, the Mattoram family plans to go out for a sumptuous Christmas brunch.