Holiday Tree Adventure

There were several things that we were barred from bringing into the country when we moved here, including vanilla extract (40% alcohol), books or magazines depicting ladies in any various stage of undress (like Cosmo), and Christmas decor.

We had been hearing from fellow expats about how to get a "holiday tree" for some time now.  (Since Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy, we definitely couldn't go around asking for a Christmas tree!)  Our first Christmas in Saudi Arabia, we had this as our tree.

A Christmas plumeria with one lonely ornament.

We moved it outside after Christmas last year because it needed light (our apartment has only 3 windows and gets very little natural light) and water (I forget to water things).  Since it rains in Saudi like 3 times a year--literally--we thought we were being smart by setting it up next to one of the sprinklers.  Unfortunately, we got home from a vacation a few months later to find that our plumeria had been planted by some of the compound workers.   We would need to find a replacement tree for the upcoming holidays (or a big shovel to dig ours up!).

Our former Christmas tree outside our apartment building

When a friend mentioned going to find Christmas trees at a particular store (which I won't name because I don't want to get them in trouble!), I jumped at the chance for this adventure.  Armed with only a vague understanding of how to accomplish this task, we headed off in search of some Christmas cheer.

We arrived at the store and went to the area we were told held the contraband.  Hesitantly, we asked a man sitting behind a desk where we could find the holiday trees.  He grunted and motioned us across the hall.  We were really confused, because the only things across the hall were the bathrooms and a room labeled Marketing.

Sketch!

We stood outside the door for a minute, trying to decide if we should knock.  Finally, we just went in and found, not a marketing office, but a storeroom full of cardboard boxes and a gruff looking man weighing nails.

This was not what I imagined it to look like in here...

Before we could even open our mouths to ask about the trees, he waved his hand, inviting us to come inside and around the corner.  He knew exactly why we were there.  We turned the corner and found... the saddest looking plastic Christmas trees I've ever seen.

Womp womp womp

"It will be a Charlie Brown Christmas for sure," murmured my friend.  "Yep," was my only response before bursting into laughter.

"How much?" asked my friend.  We were told that the trees were 120 SAR (~$32) for the small one and 250 SAR (~$67) for the bigger one.  It didn't hurt to try to make a deal with the guy.  "How much for the big ones if we buy 3?"  He looked at us, slightly confused and then a beat later, slightly entertained.  "250 each."  Oh well, it was worth a shot.

I decided the small one was good enough for our little apartment.  My friend got 2 bigger ones, for his family and a neighbor.  It was clear from the packaging that these trees had been through a lot on their journey to the kingdom.

Poor little tree box... it looked so rough

Next, we had to open the packages to make sure that the trees came with their stands.  It would be so typical of Saudi to not include something so critical, so I'm really glad the man knew to check.  Luckily, all of the packages did, in fact, come with the plastic tree stands.

Next, we headed back to the main area of the store to secure some decorations.  After some serious searching, we were able to find some garland, wrapping paper, and ornaments (all of them were in various corners of the store, tucked away and as inconspicuous as possible).  Both of us already had tree lights, but they had a few boxes of those, too.  The garland was fine.  Lots of choices, reasonable prices.  No complaints there.

The wrapping paper came in two sizes:  tiny and enormous.  Tiny was about $3 a roll.  Enormous was closer to $30.  I opted for 2 tiny rolls, since I didn't anticipate actually wrapping a lot of presents, and I couldn't fathom spending $30 on a single roll of wrapping paper.  They didn't have a lot of options, but there were enough.

Now the ornaments... oh, the ornaments.  These were something special.  These were some Hobby Lobby rejects.

The ones that look like towers of ornaments were actually glued together, and included fake leaves to make them look like a bunch of grapes.  Um...what?

These sparkly apple shaped pastel ornaments will be popular someday... maybe...

Not only were most of them super old, dusty, and weird colors, they were also between $6-10 for a box of about 6 ornaments.  Eventually I found a box of gold and a box of red that didn't look horrible, and begrudgingly headed to the checkout counter.  Clearly this store knew that they had cornered the market on Christmas tree decor, and they had jacked up the prices to match.

Later on in the week, Brian and I put up the holiday tree and enjoyed our slightly more festive apartment. 

We did the best we could with the materials we found!

We realized we had no tree topper, so in a stroke of brilliance, Brian took the piggy bank I got him from the Saudi equivalent of the Dollar Tree, took out the plug, and shoved it atop the tree.  Perfect.

One last picture for a size comparison.  (And yeah, we were watching Mariah Carey holiday music videos as we decorated.  Don't judge.)

This was a hilarious adventure and I'm so glad I was able to come away with these memories and a shitty looking Christmas tree.