In 2014 we spent Christmas in Dubai and this was my first Christmas away from home, cue a sad face and a little bit of homesickness! Christmas is still a very big deal with my family back in Northern Ireland and after 25 years celebrating at home I spent my first Christmas away from family in Dubai. In the weeks before Christmas there were a lot of festive events including the Irish Village Christmas light turn on and the Christmas market in Media City and throughout the malls you could notice many festive decorations both on display and for sale. The hotels were also well decked out with perhaps some attempts at having the biggest and best Christmas trees, but of course the best tree was the one we decorated in our apartment 😉 I was quite (pleasantly) surprised by how much was on offer related to celebrating Christmas in Dubai but everything definitely helped to set the scene and make it feel a little more normal.

Christmas eve was a little emotional for me as I wasn’t going through my usual routine with family getting ready for the big day but we tried to make Christmas day as normal as possible and invited friends round for a proper Christmas dinner, mulled wine and some board games; a Christmas essential! We also had Rhys’ sister staying with us over Christmas so it was lovely to have some family with us 🙂 and of course it was wonderful to spend our first Christmas as husband and wife together!