Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas in Oman is so lovely.  Believe it or not (for those of you reading overseas), Christmas decorations are in most of the malls and giant Christmas trees adorn many of the 4 and 5-star hotels across Muscat.  Another local blogger, mumoftheanimals, wrote a great description in her post, Christmas in Oman, of how one might get the wrong idea about Christmas here in Oman. (I had the pleasure of meeting her and her husband at the Opera House this week at the opera, Carmen! 🙂 )  The Omanis are very comfortable and warm in their Christmas greetings to expats at this time of year.  To give you an idea of the tolerance here, here is part of an email I received from my boss:

“Dear colleagues,
Some of you might be celebrating Christmas Day (December 25). Merry Chrstmas to you. There are colleagues among us who would want to celerbrate this occasion. I just want to inform you that this is not an official holiday in Oman. If you are a practicing Christian and would like to attend Church services or other functions during the day you may take part of the day off after making arrangements with your students and informing your program/course coordinator. This comes as part of our understanding of one another’s religions and beliefs.”  Sweet, huh?!

Thanks to the flexibility of my workplace, we’ll be able to attend church services tomorrow.  FYI, there are 2 PCO church services on Christmas Day in Muscat this year.  Ghala Church service in the Bosch Hall at 9am (which we will be attending) and Ruwi Church service at 7:30pm.

Looking forward to celebrating Gershom’s 2nd Christmas and watching him open his gifts tomorrow morning!  🙂

A new church banner from the PCO banner ministry gives a sweet reminder not to forget the true significance of the season which can be lost in a sea of tinsel, trees, gifts and good food!  🙂

Merry Christmas, everyone, from Andy in Oman & family from the bottom of our heart! Wishing you all peace from the Prince of Peace who entered our world to bring us hope. Now THAT’s something to celebrate!

Here’s an interesting video I noticed from twitter from Greg Laurie about “Why Red is the Color or Christmas“.  Good stuff!