After Petey left we decided to focus on the next most exciting thing… Christmas! Since we didn’t have a ton of extra room on our trip over here, we weren’t able to bring our box of Christmas supplies. This was a bit of a bummer but we figured we’d be traveling in Europe over the holiday anyway, so who really needed Christmas decorations? Me. I do. I should have seen this coming.
At one point in early December I looked around our apartment and NOTHING looked like Christmas. It was very sad and something had to be done. The only thing I had procured was a set of stockings that a local artist made for the kids. It was a great start, but what I really needed was a Christmas tree.
Finding a Christmas tree in a Muslim country is not a super easy task. Maadi is full of nurseries with some amazing plants, but I was hoping to find an artificial tree so I wouldn’t have to do this again next year. Also, and this should not come as a shock to anyone, but freshly cut fir trees don’t last very long in the desert.
After visiting lots of places and dodging traffic in the dark, I finally wandered into a giftshop that had a small artificial tree in the window. I asked if it was for sale. The four Egyptian men working in the small shop assured me it was and even sold me a couple dusty boxes of white lights! It was all very exciting. A quick trip to the grocery store provided me with some plastic baubles and voila! Christmas in the desert was starting to shape up!
Doesn’t this photo make you want to belt the lyrics of “Oh Christmas tree?!” Kyle spruced up our Christmas space by coming home from errand running WITH A POINSETTIA! This made me extremely happy and Christmas-y.
Due to the number of expat families at our school, there are several Christmas functions and events leading up to Winter Break. Namely… the staff kid Christmas party! Santa even showed up! (Which we all knew was Kannon’s teacher, but who cares and he was so jolly and even though the kids don’t really believe in Santa it was SANTA!)
There were lots of crafts for the kids to do, a couple of bouncy houses, a magician and face painting. CAC is very good about providing fun for the kiddos, that’s for sure.
One cool feature of the staff kid Christmas party was this cool Santa that one of the janitors from the middle school made. He was quite spiffy.
Pretty early on it was decided that perhaps Santa could attend the staff party later that evening. He was looking so jolly, after all.
So we brought him.
He became an important part of the photo backdrop.
And danced the night away.
He was quite popular.
Kyle got lots of kudos for his BHS fanny pack, which we have decided is very handy for ALL occasions.
The last fun Christmas event that took place before we left for our Christmas vacay was basically the entire day before Winter Break. There were SO many fun things planned for the kids, all of which culminated in a holiday concert AND SANTA SHOWED UP RIDING A CAMEL! Yes, it was the same Santa but let me tell you, he was just as magical the second time around.
Only in Egypt.
After the excitement of the Santa + camel visit, it was time to go home and get ready to fly out to Dublin early the next morning. On our way home we ran into the Christmas camel!
True to Egyptian fashion, the handlers convinced us to go on a ride (for some baksheesh, of course). We couldn’t say no!
It was the perfect way to end December in Maadi.
