Tales of Dragons, Rabbits and Roosters

60 Degrees. Baby It's Cold Outside

As I put up the Christmas decorations (by myself) I clicked the CHRISTMAS playlist on my Ipod for the first time this year.  Bing Crosby reminisced “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know.”

Although I was born in Colorado, having lived in the Middle East and California most of my life, I am more accustomed to Christmas where “the sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway.”

UGGs

My family in Iowa and Colorado can hardly believe 60 degree weather means it’s time to pull out my UGGs and wrap a scarf around my neck.  But I’m not the only one wrapping up.  The men have pulled out their dark winter thobes and leather jackets.  The Nepalese guard is wearing ear muffs.  All the ladies are wearing knee high boots and long sweaters.

It’s all relative.

The desert temperature has dropped 70 degrees from last summer’s high of 130 degrees.  Our cinder block houses with tile floors do not have heat or insulation.  Once the sun stops shining the cold concrete freezes my feet.  On a sunny day, it’s colder in the house than outside.  To me, it still feels like the Christmas season has arrived even though we don’t have rain or snow.

It had to have been the Christian Europeans who decided Christmas should be white.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph came from the Palestinian desert, present-day Jordan, where the average rainfall is less than 8 inches a year.  Although I’ve been in Jordan when it snowed, the icy snow barely lasted a day and everyone agreed it was quite a phenomenon.

Palm Tree with Snow. Amman Jordan December 2006.

I saw my Mexican friend in the grocery store the other day.  She was feeling blue because they were spending their first December holiday in Bahrain.  She said her daughters were wondering how can it be Christmas without snow?

“But you are from Mexico City, it doesn’t snow there.”

“That’s true,” she mused.  “But the girls were not born there.  We have always spent Christmas in France with my family.”

So really my friend was missing her family during this Christmas season.  That I could understand.  That was universal.