DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Just days before Christmas, Ben Elliott-Scott was busy touching up the paint on a foam snowman and blasting trees with man-made flurries to turn them a wintery white. Santa was due to arrive soon, along with dozens of party guests at the exclusive villa nestled alongside a Dubai golf course.
His company, Desert Snow, specializes in artificial snow like that used on movie sets. He had several more jobs to finish before the holiday rolled around at wealthy homes across the city, many owned by members of its large and diverse expatriate population.
“It is very much our busiest time of year,” the Briton said. “Christmas is taken almost more seriously in Dubai than it is at home. There are as many local families taking the pictures in front of the trees as expats.”
An outdoor Christmas festival, held for the second time this year, set a new attendance record by wooing more than 27,000 visitors over three days with caroling children’s choirs, gingerbread houses and a snow fight zone.
Santa Claus was on hand to hear wishes in at least three Dubai malls, naturally including the one housing an indoor ski slope and its contingent of snow penguins. The dearth of chimneys in the sheikdom didn’t seem to be a problem.
All the celebrating is in many ways a reflection of Dubai’s emergence as a cosmopolitan, commercially minded crossroads in a region often associated with intolerance and upheaval. The city last month became the first in the Middle East to win the right to host the World Expo, with a bid that emphasized its connections to the wider world.
“Dubai has taken itself one step forward to being a visibly global city. As a global city, you expect these things to happen here,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, professor of political science at Emirates University. “We’ve chosen this role. We have to get used to it.”
While celebrations of Christmas have been growing in the United Arab Emirates city for several years, Dubai nonetheless retains its Islamic identity.
The call to prayer reverberates five times a day from the city’s numerous mosques, and modest dress and behavior are expected from locals and foreigners. The local population, outnumbered more than 4-to-1 by foreign residents, prizes its traditional values.
Still, the emirate’s embrace of at least the more commercial aspects of Christmas stands out in the conservative Gulf. Neighboring Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam bans celebrations of the holiday. Kuwaiti lawmakers have criticized modest Christmas celebrations in that oil-rich country.
David Mitchell, an English engineer working in the Omani capital Muscat, traveled with his family to Dubai just to visit the Christmas festival.
“There’s nothing like this in Oman,” he said while waiting in line to take his 2 ½-year old son, Isaac, to meet Santa. “They appreciate the Christmas spirit” in Dubai, he added.
There has been little public outcry over the increasing prominence of the holiday in the Emirates, where authorities are quick to stamp out displays of public dissent and citizens rarely air their grievances in public.
Ismail al-Issawi, a professor of Islam at the University of Sharjah, just outside Dubai, said politics and economics play a role.
“Dubai now has become an international center with all kinds of religions. So it is up to them to make it possible for the various religions to have their holidays,” he said.
But Christmas trees, including one set up in a traffic circle fountain filled with sudsy soap to suggest snow, are in. So are Santa hats, jingle bells and palm trees swaddled in gift wrap-style red bows.
One supermarket, apparently trying to appeal to all customers, advertised: “This Christmas: Fresh halal turkey” - a bird slaughtered according to Islamic dietary law.
Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy contributed to this report from Dubai.
Travel, Pages 49 on 12/29/2013