Christmas time in the Kingdom

This week was interesting, we were worried about our presents from friends and family arriving with the delays caused by snow in the U.S. and europe, but Christmas was saved when the APO decided to stay open Thursday and Friday (our weekend here in the Kingdom), and we had 3 presents arrive today on Christmas Eve! The interesting thing about APO is that it is all consolidated in the States, then packaged together and sent overseas together. So, that means that you can get a lot of companies to do free shipping to APO because it is in the U.S., and if you ever ship personally remember the 'express', 'priority', and other expedited shipping only gets it to New York then its on the same priority of everything else that is APO the rest of the trip.

By far, the most interesting part was the Consulate Christmas tree decorating party. The Consulate had a little celebration for all employees to attend which included putting up the tree in the entrance of the Chancery and then we would all eat a bunch of yummy desserts. It all started out great with Christmas music playing and everyone happy to be doing something other than work. Well, it got funny because for some reason we decided the decorating should be handled by the Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Lebanese. They attacked teh tree with determination, excitement, and every possible decoration that could be dug out of the warehouse in time! They even pushed all the Americans out of the way because they knew what had to be done, but they seemed have forgotten that we have been doing this since childhood. They put lights on the tree and then decided to check to see if the lights worked and they didn't. Instead of taking them off they left them and found new ones which happen to be iciles light, that you hang outside, after putting half of them on they then checked to see if the lights worked and only half did. In the end it was amazing to watch these wonderful people work so hard to make the Consulate Christmas tree so special. The tree ended up great, but experience goes a long way and perhaps next year we will shy away from having anyone with 'Islamic Republic of ____' as the key Christmas tree decorator or at least give them a lesson on an easier way of doing things.

Mama Gnome has been in full baking mode, she has made at least 7 dozen cookies already for motorpool, security, neighbors, etc... and has now baked her first loaf of homemade French bread (which looks and smells awesome), and has another, less impressive loaf of bread that is currently baking...we most likely won't mention it again after this post.

We are trying to establish some Christmas traditions, but are noticing that some have to be slightly altered...instead of driving around to look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve, we will take the golf cart around the compound visiting neighbors. Instead of Snow Angels, we have made Sand Angels. Instead of waking up to excited kids, hopefully, it will just be the first Prayer Call. The only thing we can't replicate is having our amazing and loving family with us. We miss everyone so much, but we hope that everyone has an amazing Christmas wherever they are.

Sand Storm or a Snow Storm, which do you perfer?

Since Thanksgiving, time has really moved fast and it is now almost Christmas. We have our tree up that Auntie Mini Me Gnome (she is our lifesaver) was nice enough to smuggle in for us and most of the Christmas gifts have arrived by APO. Our wonderful dog Pagoda made it here thanks to our amazing family that got her ready for the big move while we were here. So all in all it is shaping up to be a very interesting Christmas. We are however, lacking in Christmas decorations and the only thing we could find are Poinsettas, so they are all around the house looking cheerful and glee. Baby Gnome is rocking out to her favorite Christmas song "Jingle Bells," she makes us sing it all the time while she shakes her bells... or is it jingle?


Shopping here has been the hightlight of Mama Gnome's days because she still hasn't started her job yet. She has become an expert at operating the difficult TV at the gym and indepth knowledge of course of all the grocery stores in our area. Wereposa commented about LuLu's shopping center on our last post and let me tell you we love the chicken biriyani and can't wait to try out all the other food you mentioned. Also, now that I know that Mozambique doesn't have LuLu's it's off our list of next assignments. Seriously though LuLu's has everything you need and more, but with that being said it gets very crowded and crazy, so we go in the early morning when the Arabs are still sleeping. If we feel like shopping like an American we go to the ARAMCO commissary or the Tamimi market. Hyperpanda is a nice Wal-Mart like option, and the Carrefour is great for Cheeses... the General Manager said he can put in special requests for us, amazing!



The best thing about shopping here is the selections in the produce section because they have such a wide selection of vegetables either shipped in by boat (throughout Southwest Asia) or airfreight (expensive from Europe). If you want a sweet potato look long and hard because the one from India is different than the one from Egypt. We think they both taste fine but they are nothing like the ones from home, starting with the fact that they are white. So it has been a lot of fun exploring all these new options and most options have worked our pretty well. There is one problem, the butter here is not that good for baking or cooking so our next project is to find good baking butter for the Christmas cookies. Projects are so much fun especially when you get to eat it afterwards.



We have been watching AFN (American Forces Network), our only real contact with the outside world, and have seen all the ridiculous amounts of snow everyone is getting back home and was not jealous until the other day. We thought we were living the good life with the average temperature in the mid-70s and that everyone else back home was freezing their butts off, well that has changed. We received a rather large sand storm the other day and you couldn't see very far ahead and it was terrible to breath. Today is the third day and it is starting to finally clear and we can almost see the sun again. The temperature has dropped and so we may not be able to go swimming any more. We would love to have snow over this dirty nasty dust and sand for numerous reason you can probable guess. Maybe when everyone stops wearing little face masks to block the sand it will start feeling like Christmas or maybe it will still feel like Saudi.


For more good news our HHE arrived last week at the port but here is the bad news our Saudi paperwork isn't complete so we can't get our stuff. Guess you have to take the good with the bad, our stuff made at least and we will received when it's time. For those interested, it only took about a month and a half for our HHE to get here, we were told at first it could be four months but we were talking to the wrong people.


We hope everyone has a great Christmas and will keep all of you in our prayers.