That makes six consecutive Christmas Eve-into-Christmas-Day services we have spent at St. Andrew’s Church in Abu Dhabi. And the one before that was in Hong Kong.

Cut this one a bit close. One of us walking over from the office, most of a mile away, after wrestling a section to the ground, the other arriving from a Christmas party hosted by Emiratis.

They’ve fixed up the place. St. Andrew’s had been a construction zone for the past year-plus, but now a new building is up, and everything is tidied. And it seemed to make it easier to navigate, with all the people coming and going. A couple of dozen denominations also use the St. Andrew’s facilities for their own services.

Walking anywhere in the UAE is unusual. The distances are deceptively long (because the blocks are about a mile in length), which most of us eventually figure out, and then there are the 7-8 months when exerting out of doors is really not a good idea. Even at night.

But after despairing of catching a cab, it made sense to begin hiking towards the church zone, which is between what we once called 15th and 19th streets, and between Airport Road and 24th Street.

Crossing Airport Road is always a bit intimidating. Almost in the heart of the city, at 15th, and cars flash past at about 50 mph, till it turns red, and then you always look carefully to make certain that 1) everyone stopped and 2) you aren’t about to walk into some late left-turn extravaganza. It would be silly to be run over on Christmas Eve.

Finding the churches is not difficult, even from a new direction.

You just follow the line of cabs dropping off and picking up the Christians.

It is easy to overlook the presence of Christians here. Thousands of them. Probably tens of thousands of them.

The five-a-day calls to prayer from the city’s innumerable mosques reinforce the “this is a Muslim place” aspect of it, but when you gather many of the 500,000 Filipinos and the Christian Indians and the Westerners who haven’t completely lost their religion … it’s a pretty big number and leads to gridlock around the three main churches around Christmas and Easter.

So, stay with the cabs, and you will get there. Not St. Joseph’s, the Catholic church; but St. Andrew’s, the Anglican church on the other side of a mosque.

The party with the Emiratis? One of those local families who love Christmas as a party-winter-gift exchange thing. Invited to join a family and several other Westerners, and it was nice, too. And one of the host’s visitors made sure there were two of us at St. Andrew’s by fighting through the traffic.

Not much changed, inside.

I don’t know if it is particular to this church or to Anglicans everywhere, but the candlelight service began, for the sixth consecutive time, with a carol I have never, ever heard in the States. Once In Royal David’s City.

I have come to recognize it; still not fond of it. Nor of O Little Town of Bethlehem sung to the “wrong” tune.

A big crowd. Mostly Brits and Indians, it seemed. A few North Americans and some Filipinos who perhaps got lost on their way to St. Joseph’s, which is around the corner. At least 250 people inside the fairly bare sanctuary. It is a squarish-space, with the altar in one corner and the pews then set up diagonally. A bit odd.

The choir was enthusiastic but not very good, and the organist, bless him/her struggled with the notes, but everyone seemed happy enough. It was Christmas Eve, after all, and most were with their families, and little candles had been placed on the rail ahead of each pew.

(For the first time, candles were not distributed individually and never handled, nor was there a point when the sanctuary went dark, which probably is a good idea because holding a bulletin in one hand and a candle in the other can be tricky, when you stand to sing a hymn, particularly in a room with some very long hair and flowing saris.)

It’s funny, but when in an unfamiliar church, you find yourself comparing things to what you know best and, inevitably, the new place comes off badly. This wasn’t quite right, neither was that.

Like you are comparing baseball stadiums or theaters or some other public space.

But the bones of the service are the same and the bonhomie is genuine, and December 24 became December 25 in the middle of the service. We heard lots of “Happy Christmas!”-ses (a British thing) on the way out, and shook enough hands to be running for office.

Everyone was smiling, and happy to be living in a place in the Middle East where churches can be built and Christians aren’t persecuted. A place like the UAE, that is.

Seems like, year by year, fewer such tolerant places exist, in this part of the world.