by Bernadette Nason | Dec 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
Most single expatriates in Dubai celebrated Christmas Day with their friends in apartments or villas. My own favorite took place in a true Middle Eastern house with a large, central, stone-paved courtyard sheltered by willowy palm trees. All the rooms, including the...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 8, 2012 | Uncategorized
THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS is an English Christmas carol, first published in 1780.No Christmas would be complete without it! Here’s a fine version by The Chipmunks:http://youtu.be/Q8Jbi-BBp3c On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to meA partridge in...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
A short post today because the photo says it all. Life was simpler back in the early 1960s. Everything connected with Christmas is on top of, alongside, or in front of the radiogram. Christmas Tree – check Creche with the Angel Gabriel on top – check...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 6, 2012 | Uncategorized
1984, then, was to be my first Christmas out of England, actually my first Christmas not spent in the family home, and I hadn’t missed Christmas church in my 27 years on Earth. Alright then. I’d make a real effort to create some kind of festive feeling. ...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 5, 2012 | Uncategorized
There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of shoes. Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 4, 2012 | Uncategorized
My mum was a single parent with three children under the age of seven. She became aware, after Dad went away, that Christmas was turning into an unhappy time for her little children, a time of worry and stress. God alone knows how worrying and stressful it was for...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 3, 2012 | Uncategorized
LITTLE tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see i will comfort you because you smell so sweetly i will kiss your cool bark and hug you safe and tight just...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
In 1987, when I worked the Jebel Ali Hotel in Dubai, I had to work on Christmas Day. I’d asked about a December vacation but at one of our busiest times, it was out of the question. I’ve read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol every December since I...
by Bernadette Nason | Dec 1, 2012 | Uncategorized
In an old abbey town, a long, long time ago there officiated as sexton and gravedigger in the churchyard one Gabriel Grubb. He was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow, who consorted with nobody but himself and an old wicker-bottle which fitted into his...
by Bernadette Nason | Nov 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
I don’t know if you know this but the English don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. O. Henry loves to tell people: it is a “purely American” holiday. In England, where I was brought up, we celebrate Harvest Festival. Of course, we’ve given thanks for successful...
