DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ¨C For over 25 years, expatriates celebrating Christmas in Dubai have been able to buy large, fragrant Christmas trees imported from Canada and the United States ¡ª a seasonal treat in the desert Gulf state.
On a sunny day with a cool breeze, a far cry from a white Christmas but typical for winter in Dubai, plant sellers opened up their trucks in the crowded working-class Satwa district.
Buyers can pay anything from 200 dirhams ($54) for a 1.6-meter tree up to 5,000 dirhams for giant ones.
¡°Plastic trees don¡¯t affect our business,¡± said one seller, Gulshan Gafoor. ¡°(With) real ones, you get good smells.¡±
But prices are rising, buyers said. Two years ago, Monica Wojciechowska, a Polish expat who has lived in Dubai for 17 years, said she bought a tree for 200 dirhams while this year the same size tree costs 450 dirhams.
She tried to bargain, but seller Abdul Sanju had his arguments ready.
¡°We don¡¯t grow in Dubai, in Dubai we don¡¯t have the climate. If it was in Dubai, I¡¯d sell for 200,¡± Sanju told her.
Prices have gone up because of custom duties, he said.
When Sanju¡¯s boss Muyinuddin Rafi started his Christmas tree business more than 25 years ago there were only a few shops, but now buyers have more choices as supermarkets and big stores have joined the market.
Customers still come to the sellers¡¯ trucks though, because ¡°they can actually see the tree, know the thickness, know the bushiness,¡± said Sanju.
As the sun began to set, Bon Chandana, a Sri Lankan hospital worker, came to buy a Christmas tree with his son. In the past, he said, he had spent up to 600 dirhams on trees.
¡°I want to enjoy and (give) respect to my Jesus, my God,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m a very small person ¡ª but (when it comes) to Christmas, very big.¡±
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