Santa Claus is coming to town - on a camel!

I'm probably not the only one who has experienced a little shudder of dread when I hear the words "Ward Party", but I have to say our ward here in Dubai does the term proud.  For our Christmas party this year we went to the desert.  Camping in the desert is a big thing here, but since camping isn't really my thing, we haven't tried that, so this was our first time really exploring the dunes.  All the kids had a great time climbing up and rolling, sledding (yep, with real snow sleds), running and chasing up and down the sand hills. 

Two camels were part of the evening, and they gave short rides to any who were interested.  Finley and I opted out, but as you can see, Will sort of rode solo:).  He held on tight and was very nonchalant about the whole thing.  The lead camel (not this one) got pretty tired as the line to ride got shorter, and every time the camel driver tried to get him to stand up, he growled and complained, so a second camel driver had to get up and convince his charge to get up and down a few more times.  If you have seen a camel get up and down, I can see why it would get old - it looks like it's got to be hard on all four knees! 

 

And the highlight of the evening - Santa riding in on a camel.   Seriously, when will I ever see this again? 

He got mobbed pretty quickly by all the kids, and even a little more so by all the parents with our cameras!  Little treat bags with glow sticks, candy canes and a jingle bell bracelet were a hit, then we had a short musical program that went on too long (it was a school night and there would be no skipping the baths after this sandy adventure).  Another lady and I played some Christmas carols on our violins as part of the program, and then we packed up, climbed the dunes back to our cars, and tried to shake off as much sand as possible before getting in our cars to go home. 

 

Use your imagination and expand the borders of this picture to include the camel's head because they were really sitting on a camel...

Merry Christmas to all, and I hope your ward christmas parties delivered as much awesome as ours did!