Chris Saul's Blog

Monday December 17, 2007

Sun get the right greeting for a change

Our EMEA VP actually said 'Happy Christmas' in his 'holiday email' to staff today. I was quite pleased - by all means wish people 'Season's Greetings' and 'Happy Holidays' (which he did too), but let's not forget that it's Christmas as well.

Dubai seems to be extra Christmassy at the moment. There are no overtly Christian symbols on display, but the shops and malls are full of Christmas trees, Santas and winter scenes. There are some angels on the trees this year, something I can't remember seeing in previous years, but I might be wrong. The Philipino staff in my local supermarket are all in full song when I walk in and the shop's empty, accompanying the cheesey Christmas music CD that plays on repeat.

It probably feels more like Christmas in Dubai than it does in parts of the UK where misguided local authorities feel that any overtly Christian and Christmas displays will 'offend' the local non-Christian population. In the towns in which this is occurring for yet another year in a row, local minority leaders are probably getting tired of banging their heads against a brick wall trying to make people understand that although they are Muslim, Sikh or Hindu they are not 'offended' to see people celebrating Christmas.

It was good to see Trevor Philips putting his foot down about this recently.