'Tis the Season

We were watching CNN tonight and I think it caught us both off-guard to remember that it is actually early December in the rest of the world. The footage was shot somewhere in Minnesota where cars carefully trundled down icy streets while rosy-cheeked girls with blonde pigtails sneaking out of their polarfleece snow hats tried to keep up with their (hatless, gloveless) mother.

Meanwhile, today I drove an hour north under a partly cloudy blue sky, dodging the occasional sand drift and dutifully moving to the middle lane when maniacs in Range Rovers roared up behind me flashing their lights for all they're worth.

Somehow, the scene in MN seems a lot more Christmasy to me.

All of this has me thinking about how my definition of "seasons" is changing. It used to be that the only guest one worried about in December was Santa. Turns out that in Holland this visitor could cause a bit more consternation than in the States. Forget that sissy lump of coal reserved for bratty American kids: Naughty Dutch children are abducted by Sinterklas and his band of black men during the first week of December. They come to your house, put you in a sack and take you to Spain. (Of course, once these kids grow up they head to Spain for weeks of hedonistic fun, but that's another story.)

In any case, December in Dubai means a very different type of guest. It could be your mom, your best friend or even someone you used to work with. And actually, it doesn't matter, because anyone will pose as your second cousin's live-in plant sitter to have the chance to spend some time in the sun and thaw out. For many who live here, it is the time to replace the front door with a revolving one and to have yet another spare key made (Dora, notice that I'm not mentioning you at all...except I just did...).

It also means that social events generally include people that no one else knows. Its great to have new faces and fun to put our "old" friends in new contexts. But a year later you look back at the pictures and think, "Who WAS that guy?" You know he was the friend of someone you knew at the time (who may have easily moved away by the time you get around to looking at the pics), but for the life of you you can't remember her name or why she was with you when the friend in question was clearly nowhere nearby.

I realize this isn't a phenomenon exclusive to Dubai, but I've never seen anything like it anywhere else I've lived. We have friends who had guests staying with them for a solid three months. Not one set of guests staying for a long stretch of time--several different groups of people settling in for days or weeks at a time.

But I'm not complaining. Dubai is a constantly changing tapestry of people, buildings and roads and really, you have to see it to believe it.