Some exciting Christmas news!

At the back end of last week, after months of coming to terms with the fact that we would be staying in the Middle East for the festive season, after pouring my heart out about how we were planning to survive our first Christmas in Qatar, and when I was actually starting to quite look forward to the idea of opening our presents on the beach...Rich's boss came to let him know that it was going to be possible for him to take leave over Christmas after all.

Cue me running to my own boss to ask if it would be at all possible for me to change the holiday I had booked in for February to late December (it was), calling Mummy Bags to let her know the good news, and frantically contacting my bridesmaids to let them know the February hen do was now off and instead it might have to happen in TWO WEEKS' time if they thought they could manage it (they did)!!

So now we're on a very different Christmas countdown. Next week I head to Nepal for a few days with work (more on this in due course!) and then we're back to Blighty for a week of friends, family and wedding-related activities. In case you hadn't worked it out, I am more than a little excited.

After we had received the good news, we celebrated with a Christmassy dinner at our neighbours Ally and Miriam's flat (apologies for the grainy iPhone photos, I didn't take my camera out with me). 

Ally has just launched his autobiography, "Begg To Differ" charting his journey from childhood to his boy band days and beyond, which is firmly on my Christmas list (you can purchase it from Amazon here). Rich had a little preview before dinner, and couldn't put it down.

We also headed to Gourmet House at the Kempinski this week to see their amazing gingerbread house, and to quaff some Christmassy treats.

Now I'm in full planning mode, with the scary prospect of having to cram: Christmas shopping; wedding dress shopping; bridesmaid dress shopping; a haircut; a hair and make-up wedding trial; a meeting with our photographer; a meeting with the lady that is doing our flowers; a visit to our venue, Chatsworth; two separate Christmas celebrations with both of our families AND a hen do into the space of just nine days. Phew.

But it will all be worth it, because it means that we get to see some of these very special Christmassy faces along the way:

So while we're still planning on getting involved in all of the Christmas-related events we can while we're still in Doha, we're very VERY excited about what is to come once we're home.

Really, really, really good.

Is having Christmas at home important to you? Do you have any special traditions that you look forward to on the day?