Santa Riding a Camel

In July 2003, my sweetie and I packed up practically all our belongings and proceeded to live out of suitcases for the next six months. Lots of fun for so many reasons.

Here we were in Egypt and it was much colder than we were expecting, setting aside the fact that we'd expected our belongings to arrive earlier. So besides not having the proper attire or blankets, the biggest problem for me was not having any of my Christmas stuff. You know me, I LOVE decorating for the holidays, especially when they're spent far from home. Makes me feel settled. Like where I am IS home.

Luckily I discovered that some of the enterprising Tentmaker Appliquers here have made all sorts of creative things for the expat/tourist market. I went on a bit of a buying binge. First off is a wallhanging with Santa riding a camel:

Isn't this great? Notice the itty bitty pyramids there on the bottom right. This really appeals to me cuz I try to collect Santa travelling in unusual ways. (Still trying for that sleigh drawn by kangaroos, but I'm definitely on the wrong continent for that.) I love Santa's face - very simple and folk-arty.

Muhammad was sweet and made up stockings really quickly for my sweetie and I.
That's my name in arabic at the bottom (so they tell me). I love the scale of this one better than the one above - all crowded in and more details in the sky. And of course the sky is BLUE not neutral. Just so you can get a really good look at it:


By the way, these stockings are HUGE.