Christmas Day celebrations; 22 masses in 13 languages at St Josephs Cathedral in Abu Dhabi

In addition to celebrating the holiday with family get-togethers, feasts, Christmas tree decorations with gifts and lights, and carol singing, the devout will pray in churches on Christmas day.

Hundreds of believers will take part in a Christmas vigil before the big festivities, at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Abu Dhabi. Christmas Eve liturgies are scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. and end at midnight, carol will commence after that.

On Christmas Day, St. Joseph's Cathedral will host up to 22 masses in 13 different languages from 4 a.m. until 8.30 p.m. Arabic, English, Ukrainian, Italian, French, Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Konkani, and Sinhala are the languages in which services will be provided.

On Sunday and Monday, there will be seven masses each at St. Paul's Church in Musaffah.

There will be two English Masses at 6 a.m. and 7.30 a.m., on Christmas Eve - Sunday, December 24, at St. Mary's Catholic Church, followed by English mass at 3.30 p.m., French mass at 5 p.m., English mass at 7 p.m., and Arabic mass at 9 p.m. English high mass at midnight will be preceded by carol singing at 11:15 p.m. 

English morning services are scheduled for 5.30, 7am, 8.30am, and 10am on Christmas Day, December 25. An Arabic Mass is scheduled to begin at 11.30am. There will be evening masses in English at 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., and 7.30 p.m., followed by an Arabic mass at 9 p.m.

The following events are scheduled for December 24 at Jebel Ali's St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church: Mass in Tamil at 1pm, Malankara at 10.30am, and English at 7.30 and 9am are the next in queue. Malayalam mass will take place at 9 p.m., while English masses will be held at 3 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. It will begin at 11 p.m. with the sad midnight mass

On Christmas Day, there are English masses at six, eight, ten, five, seven, and eight thirty o'clock.

Other Masses scheduled include Arabic at 4 p.m., Spanish at 2.30 p.m., Ukrainian at 1 p.m., Filipino at 1 p.m., and Sinhala at 11.30 a.m.