Dear all
MERRY CHRISTMAS 2014
I've decided to break with tradition and add some Dubai friends to my annual Christmas email. It was originally intended as an update for family and friends overseas, but so many Dubai friends have now left and become overseas friends, that the distinction between Dubai and overseas friends is becoming somewhat blurred.
The email normally follows a similar structure. Lame joke, quick summary of the year, holidays, concerts, update on the kids, Dubai news, maybe a glimpse of the future, another lame joke (if you are lucky), steep decline in narrative quality (more likely), waffle (if you are unlucky), copy paste ending (as the beer reduces my creativity, and the lure of the couch becomes too great)!
So this year, I thought I'd do something different. Maybe an insightful commentary on the conflicts of celebrating Christmas in a Muslim country. Or maybe not...
To be honest, we celebrate Christmas pretty well in Dubai. The tree is up and it is suitably propped up with presents. Ikea exists and sells Christmas lights. We've been playing festive tunes on the iPod for the whole of December and are only starting to go slightly mad as a result. In fact, I got told off for putting Journey on in the garden this afternoon (bad Andy, I'll be cooking up some crack next!).
If anything, we seem to celebrate Christmas even more. We love Christmas carols in the desert, even if we do get stuck and need rescuing by a friend with a jeep and some jolly fine young chaps. We've bought Christmas jumpers (I actually quite like mine).
So there you go, pretty much like Christmas everywhere else, apart from the sun, fake snow, lack of holidays and the occasional religious zealot demanding that some poor bugger refers to winter holidays instead of Christmas.
We've had a pretty good year I guess, as good as anyone could have with four young children. There has been a lot of shouting and crying and mess, but a lot of joy as well. Bec has fond distant memories of undisturbed sleep. All the boys have taken their time to sleep properly through the night, and Max has been no exception. He is better now, but usually wakes earlier than the rest. And sod's law demands that if he has a good night, at least one of the others will cough throughout, or have a nightmare, or just fall out of bed!
The kids are all doing well. Great school reports, although school just seems to take over all our lives, with the stupidly early starts, homework and activities. It is very tiring for all the kids and us. The boys love their football on Thursday evenings, and all three of the eldest now play rugby on Saturdays at Arabian Knights. Daisy is probably the keenest, which we are pleasantly surprised about, although rugby is starting to take over our weekends if there is one of the many tournaments on. Max is more of a handful than all of the others were, and he loves to get into everything and throw stuff around. He is so cute and loving and funny, but looking for trouble at every opportunity.
We took the kids back to the UK in the summer for the first time in a while. In fact, Sebastian and Max had never been. It was lovely to be back in London, especially as the weather followed us from Dubai and it was glorious throughout. The kids did not want to leave!
There has been the usual run of concerts this year. Plenty of big heritage acts such as Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton and Black Sabbath, plus Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Neil Finn, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Kings of Leon. My company launched two new music festivals, Red Fest and Blended, hence lots of smaller festival acts as well.
The annual trip to the London Double Header at Twickenham is now a firm fixture, and I was lucky to see Kasabian again the night before at the iTunes Festival, who were absolutely fantastic!
Bec is off to New Zealand tomorrow night to catch up with friends (ie get drunk) so I will be in charge of parenting for nine days (ie get drunk even earlier than normal). Thankfully, my parents are coming out to distract the kids. Hopefully, Max won't be too sad!
So there we are. The email actually turned out pretty much the same as normal. Why spoil a winning formula I hear you all say (or more likely not)!
Due to the scourge of Facebook, our blog is looking a bit bare, but we occasionally do post something on http://blog.becandy.com/ so you can still check what we are up to (very intermittently) there. Otherwise, please come and see us in Dubai.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year.
Lots of love from
Ellis Inc x