Celebrating the Holidays: Expat Living

If there is one thing we might know a bit about, it is the expat lifestyle.  As well as our many years spent as the region’s leading relocation company, our entire EER team is made up of expatriates from around the world.  They are well versed in the nuances of expat living, which is one of the ways that makes them so understanding and accommodating when it comes to assisting our clients and assignees with their relocation and immigration needs.  Many of the team have been expats for a long time, whether in the UAE or beyond, so they are also very experienced at celebrating holidays and occasions far from family or their home country.  This year, we wanted to chat to them about their own traditions and how they keep the spirit of home alive when celebrating in a foreign land and the ways that you can make the festive season truly special, even as an expat.

Andreea: I love this time of year and even though I can’t be with all of my family, I like to do one thing each day to keep the Christmas spirit alive.  That means for two weeks before Christmas I follow my Christmas Calendar activities so you can find me baking gingerbread cookies, going to a Christmas market, drinking hot coco, watching Christmas movies and listing to carols.  Then on Christmas day I invite my expat friends over for dinner and we exchange Secret Santa gifts and have a karaoke session!

Donna: One of my favourite things about Christmas is going to mass every day from 15^th to 23^rd December.  They say that once you have completed the nine evening masses, you can ask for a Christmas wish and it will come true.  We also like to celebrate Noche Buena on Christmas Eve, which is when you can exchange gifts with friends and family.

Joelle:  As an expat, your friends quickly become your family, so when I am here for Christmas I love to celebrate by getting all of my friends together for a jolly Christmas brunch!

Bernard: Around 15-20 days before Christmas, my dad and I go and buy a new Christmas Tree and decorations. On Christmas Eve we gather with family and eat our usual Filipino delicacy – the LECHON (grilled and oven toasted pork) and at 12 midnight we exchange gifts.  My wife has a tradition of buying me amazing presents but wrapping them in something else, one year she got me a custom-made wrestling shirt, but put it in an Ipad box!  She then followed that surprise up with my very own Fender Bass Guitar on the 25^th!

Ana:  Like many expats, the holidays are really about friends.  For Christmas we all like to get together and everyone pitches in to help by bringing their own dishes to eat.  New Year’s Eve is one of my favourites when we get to go out and watch the amazing fireworks displays!

Erica: My festive season is all about the kids.  They love kicking things off with chocolate advent calendars and setting up the Christmas tree.  We also like to put the ‘elf on the shelf” who makes an appearance on the 1st December. It is a fun tradition where the elf can be good or naughty, but his main job is to inform Santa by Christmas Eve if the children have been naughty or nice – which can work well as a reminder to be on their best for the final month of the year.

Oksana:  The holiday season always makes me think of Christmas carols.  In Ukraine on the evening of January 6, it is customary to sing carols with a big star in your hands. Carollers sing Christmas carols. Boys and girls prepare special songs and poems that they take from house to house, entertaining their neighbours in exchange for sweet gifts and coins. It is believed that the more carollers come to the house, the more prosperity and wealth there will be in the family over the next year.