It is possible that the birth of Christ was first celebrated here more than 14 centuries ago.
Today, long after the 7th century Nestorian monks left their monastery on what is now Sir Bani Yas Island, communities from around the world freely celebrate Christmas in an atmosphere of religious tolerance.
In an expatriate community as diverse as the UAE’s, that means almost as many different traditions as there are congregations marking the religious festival.
At St Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi, masses are said in more than 15 languages.
Here, different nationalities explain how they try to make their Christmas special, often thousands of miles from home.
Poland
Reaching into his supermarket trolley outside Spinneys in Jumeirah 1, Tomek Trybus triumphantly pulls out one of the things that will make his Christmas complete – a jar of pickled white cabbage.
With his wife Marta and two children, Antony, 6, and Zosia, 4, he has made the 160-kilometre journey to Dubai to locate this particular delicacy essential to a proper Polish Christmas.
“We can’t find in Abu Dhabi,” he explains.
Over the festive season, the cabbage will be served with forest mushrooms, gathered by his father back home, then dried and entrusted to the international post. Fortunately, they have arrived safely.
Poles begin their Christmas on December 24, when they decorate a tree and open their presents. Later they will head to St Joseph’s for midnight mass.
“Last year we had a nice live tree from Spinneys,” says Tomek. “We had a lot of visitors. But this year it is just us, so we will probably have a synthetic one.”
Other dishes include a beetroot soup served with small ravioli and, on Christmas Day, a main meal with mashed potatoes and more pickled cabbage.
But the centrepiece of the dinner is proving less easy to track down.
Poles traditionally serve carp, a large freshwater fish, “but it is impossible to find here”, says Tomek.
“But we can use hammour or Nile perch instead.”
* James Langton
Philippines
Sticky purple rice cakes and mass before dawn mark Christmas celebrations for Filipinos in the UAE.
The Christmas season begins after All Saints Day on November 1 and lasts until Three Kings Day in January.
Simbang Gabi, a nine-day series of predawn masses, starts on December 16. The tradition is said to date from the Spanish colonial period when priests held mass before farmers started a long day’s work in the fields.
The Christmas Eve mass is called Misa de Gallo, or Rooster’s Mass. After Misa de Gallo, people share a family dinner and yuletide treats such as puto bumbong – purple rice cakes – are prepared and served at the church after the service.
It is said a wish is granted to those who attend every mass. “Because waking up in the morning is really hard,” says Karrene Magat, 27, a branch manager at Panaderia Bakery who lives in Abu Dhabi.
Houses are decorated with parol – star-shaped lanterns of paper and bamboo that represent the star of Bethlehem. Children carol with drums and tambourines made of old milk cans and tins. In the UAE singing is in private venues.
“Because I am with my sisters here it doesn’t really feel like there’s any difference in what we do,” says Karrene, who has four sisters in Abu Dhabi.
“Most of the Filipino communities here do an outreach programme for those who are less fortunate. We collect gifts from among ourselves and send it back home, especially now with the Yolanda typhoon.”
* Anna Zacharias
Ethiopia
Ethiopians observe Christmas Day in January according to the Ge’ez calendar, which is based on the old Egyptian calendar.
People fast the day before Christmas and dress in a thin white cotton wrap, or shamma, at dawn to attend church on January 7.
“We go to church, we celebrate, we remember the date,” says Mesfin Suyoum, 27, an entrepreneur who has lived in Abu Dhabi for five years. “It’s a normal service worshipping God and it’s about Jesus, of course.”
There are Ethiopian churches in all seven emirates and services are held from 6am until 9pm.
“Many Ethiopians must work and do not get a day off for Christmas,” says Batelehem Berhaun, 24, who works in a salon.
For Christmas she joins friends to share doro wat – spicy chicken stew – served on injera flatbread.
Ethiopia is famous for Christmas games unique to each of its regions. Mesfin’s favourite is a version of Ethiopian field hockey played with curved sticks. It is said that shepherds started this game when they were told of the birth of Jesus.
“It’s like cricket,” says Mesfin. “We have a small ball and people have a thing like a hockey stick. It’s just for Christmas. We don’t play it in UAE, it’s difficult to get the stick.”
*Anna Zacharias
India
Keralite Christians in Abu Dhabi will celebrate with a dance that tells the story of the apostle Saint Thomas, who brought Christianity to the South Indian coast from Jerusalem in the first century.
Saint Thomas Orthodox Christians say mass in Syriac, an Aramaic dialect spoken in ancient Mesopotamia.
Events in Abu Dhabi are held at the Indian Social Centre and the church.
“Basically everything starts with the church,” says Meenu Palakalthazha, 23, a Keralite raised in Abu Dhabi. “You know we have a church of our own and our community people and it just goes on the way it is in India. [In the UAE] it is all nuclear families, whereas in India it’s very grand – you have your grandparents, you have your cousins.”
Her family’s Christmas meal ends a 25-day vegetarian period, and they will feast with chicken biryani, appam rice pancakes, payasam – a milk-based sweet – and sing carols in Malayalam and English.
At the Indian Association she will go to watch the Margam kali dancers, where 12 dancers act out the life and times of St Thomas and dance around a Nilavilakku, a traditional lamp common to Kerala. The light represents Jesus and the dancers are his apostles.
“Being here we don’t know much about traditions, so we have older people who give this knowledge to the younger ones,” says Meenu. “A big audience comes and even the ones who don’t know about it come to learn.”
*Anna Zacharias
Armenia
In a tradition that stretches back to the earliest days of Eastern Christianity, the 500 families of Abu Dhabi’s Armenian community, and their 10 million compatriots worldwide, will celebrate Christmas Day on January 6.
For Armenians, New Year’s Eve may be the time for Gaghant Baba to deliver his gifts, but Christmas Day is an occasion for prayer, family, and for the food that has helped the community to preserve its identity throughout the last 1,700 years of its diaspora.
“Wherever I have lived, I have always tried to keep to tradition,” explains Gulizar Jonian, the chairwoman of the Abu Dhabi Armenian Ladies Committee. “All Armenian families are like that. We always keep the essence.”
As with many Armenians, Gulizar’s life experience is expressed in the traditional dishes she prepares.
“My family baked kleja – pastries stuffed with dates – because there were always plenty of these in Iraq. Armenians in Lebanon and Syria would bake choreg, which is a sweet bread, like brioche.”
Traditionally, Armenians fast for at least a week before gathering as a family on Christmas Eve for khetum – a special dinner of fish, rice, spinach and eggs and tanabur soup made from yogurt and wheat. It is sweet dishes such as rojik, however, that hold a special place in Mrs Jonian’s heart.
“We always bring this from Armenia or Syria or Lebanon. It’s very delicious. We thread whole shelled walnuts and dip them in grape jelly. You can’t find the grape jelly here so we either have to bring it from Armenia or make it ourselves.”
*Nick Leech
Ukraine
Long after most other western expatriates have packed away their artificial Christmas trees and glittery baubles, the country’s Ukranian population will sit down for a grand 12-course meal.
For the predominantly Orthodox Christian community, January 7 is the official Christmas Day, and marks the end of more than a month of fasting, prayer and repentance.
“It’s really family-focused in January. Before Christmas, according to our religion, we start fasting,” explains Ukraninan expatriate Anastasiya Golovatenko, a PR manager. “On the sixth, we eat a meal of rice and raisins, then on our Christmas Day we have 12 dishes, no more and no less. Traditionally we have all our family and relatives around.”
For Anastasiya, having the right foods is essential. So much so that she filled her suitcase with dried fruits and other ingredients when she travelled home last month.
“I filled two luggages full of food, some of it you can find here but there are some candies and dried fruit and nuts that you cannot.
“Now you just go to the supermarket and buy everything but before the grandmothers would use what they had, it was all healthy and very tasty.”
Anastasiya has been given January 7 as a day off by her company and she plans to make the most of it.
“I want to organise a Ukranian Christmas for my friends and colleagues because they are not familiar with our culture. It will be very special.”
Mitya Underwood
* On Friday, the Weekend section looks at the different ways, and dates, New Year is celebrated around the world, as well as how these festivities take place.