It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Among the construction noise, the constant "beep, beep, beep, beep" when trucks reverse and the cranes hauling large pieces of new buildings right above and across your head,

there is a sense of excitement and anticipation in Dubai and certainly in the Ault family.

Much to my delight, I walked in to a Hallmark store to get wrapping paper and I walked out with $100 worth of postage stamps! All my pent-up frustration and near mental breakdown all seemed to flow right out of me when the clerk said "yes, how many would you like?" - I nearly kissed him but then thought better of it as I don't want to become tomorrow's news: "Danish woman arrested for molesting innocent store manager with kisses. Faces 4 years in jail and permanent deportation!" Let's just say that nearly getting kicked out of Disney World 15 years ago for drunk and disorderly behavior is enough of a deterrant for this mother of 2!

Instead I paid, packed up my wad of stamps and started licking away on their backs so I could get my 52 cards to friends and family before the 24th. The next hurdle of course was finding a mailbox but lady luck was on my side. As I exited the mall I found the most beautiful red box mounted on the wall. It was so identical to the Danish mailboxes I thought for a minute I was in Copenhagen! Our friend Nicole had warned me of posting things in the mailbox next to Ibn Batutta Mall, because it is mounted on a wall, at the end of a dead-end road, where a building is under construction and absolutely no car, bicycle or man will ever reach it to empty the contents. Her mother's birthday card has been sitting in that box since August and will sit there until they finish the building and re-open the road!

There was a big sense of relief when I let go of all the envelope and heard the thumps - confident that this box, at the Mall of Emirates, is emptied regularly. Whether it makes it out of Dubai to the rest of the world is not my problem now - I have done my duty of writing and mailing! Merry Christmas every one!

The spirit is with us here now - I feel it. While I was laying on the lounge chair upstairs on the roof, wiggling my toes in the [very cold] pool (Aric hasn't found the heater switch yet), I was thinking of how I can make it a special Season for the boys without all the hoopla and usual Christmas traditions. Because let's face it - having 24 degrees Celsius and sunshine in December is not the norm for this viking lady. If it isn't dark at 3.30pm with a dash of stinging icy rain and your toes aren't near frostbite stage, then it doesn't feel like Christmas. Yet somehow George Michaels' "Last Christmas I gave you my Heart...." playing in our building elevator and every store in Dubai, makes it feel so familiar and heart warming. Yesterday I went to our Cisco 'Ladies only' Christmas dinner and came home with my secret santa gift: scented candles with sandalwood - and I inhale this holiday scent while I write today's blog. It has inspired me to at least decorate the dining room table! I may throw a light or two in the mini palm tree on the balcony and the Rudolf chocolate reindeer has his spot next to the bowl of orange cinnamon potpourri on the buffet. Christmas eve we will have a nice quiet dinner (Hunter has ordered steaks and double baked potatoes) and there will be a few presents under the palm tree.

Dubai twinkles in the night - Aric and I have seen it from our bed, looking out as far as we can from the 19th floor at 2 am, to the suburbs in the desert. It was romantic until he pointed out that the twinkles were in fact construction vehicles moving about with their yellow blinking warning lights on the roof. Then it became a game of "count the amount of vehicles on the roads" - we realized that while the expats sleep, Dubai continues to be built at an alarmingly fast rate by imported labor who work in shifts, 24/7. Between midnite and 6 am nearly all roads are dominated by construction vehicles. We hope that on the one night, for Christmas, even the trucks will be silent in the night and we can enjoy the view of real twinkling lights.