Cindy and I had a great Christmas this year. We spent Christmas Eve with some friends from campus - at church and then at their place for a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner. On Christmas Day, we opened presents, had a friend over for breakfast, and then headed off to Christmas Dinner. So far, so good...
Then, for Christmas dinner, we drove out to the city of Hatta - a little over an hour away into the mountains. We didn't know it yet, but somewhere on that drive we crossed over into the Twilight Zone. We had a great time with about a dozen friends from campus, but I have to admit that it was a little like celebrating Christmas in a parallel universe. First of all, the decorations were very Christmas-y and there were a lot of "Merry Christmas" wishes exchanged, but our mountain lodge dinner setting was still in the desert. Hmmm. That's odd...
Then, when Santa came in, he wore the red suit that you would expect, but his coloring gave me the impression that he arrived on a camel from Oman or Yemen, not on a sleigh from the North Pole. His helpers (carrying bags of gifts) were definitely in Yemeni tribal dress. They all seemed excited to play the part. I should have asked them how "elf" translates into Arabic.
The hotel had a choir to lead everyone in a sing-along! So we sang maybe four traditional carols - led by the Philippino and Pakistani kitchen help and waitstaff. Great voices, but...wow.
After Santa and the singing, a magician came in to perform for the kids - typical card tricks and sleight-of-had stuff. And of course he gave out gifts after his tricks. Did I mention that the magician was a Malaysian Elvis impersonator?
I can't tell you how many times Cindy and I looked at each other and said, "Where ARE we?"
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| Merry Christmas! |
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| Jeff and our colleague Earl helping out the Malaysian Elvis. |
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| The Yemeni Santa - and his helpers to deliver toys to the children. |
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| Kitsch Kristmas Karols |
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