KARACHI: Professor Inayatdin skillfully plays the piano as his daughter, Dr. Jennifer Maqbool, leads the family into singing a melodious Christmas carol. A Christmas tree adorned with decorations, bright lights throughout the house, and singing voices ensures there’s plenty of Christmas festivity in the air at this Karachi house.
Every year, millions of Christians around the world mark December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be the son of God and savior of humanity. For centuries, Christians have celebrated the event by getting together with friends and families, exchanging gifts, and cooking sumptuous meals.
Dr. Maqbool’s home in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi is no different.
“Love and peace and mankind; this is the message of Christmas,” Dr. Maqbool told Arab News. “And we are celebrating it here with fervor in Pakistan,” she added, placing an unbaked cake into her oven.
In the other room, children decorate the house with bright lights and vibrant decorations as Dr. Maqbool makes her way to the heart of the home – the kitchen – where the sweet aroma of Christmas awaits.
“Pakistanis enjoy Christmas very much. Christmas programs and the Christmas season start for us from the end of November,” Dr. Maqbool explained.
Pakistan is home to 2.63 million Christians, the third-largest religious community in the predominantly Muslim South Asian country. Pakistan’s Christian community starts preparing for the festive event before December begins.
These preparations, Dr. Maqbool said, include making snacks, baking cakes, buying Christmas gifts for friends and relatives, and organizing church plays, dramas, bonfires and carol parties.
“All this is a part of Christmas,” she said, smiling.
While the adults look forward to the mouth-watering dishes and desserts, the children’s minds are preoccupied with something else.
“The children have already written letters to Santa Claus for the gifts they want,” Dr. Maqbool said.
“And if they have been good, Santa Claus will be bringing gifts and hiding them in the house somewhere. And he will leave clues and they will then find their gifts.”
Mishal Munawar, one of the children and Dr. Maqbool’s relative, said she was decorating the Christmas tree in the house.
“The Christmas tree is very mandatory,” Munawar told Arab News. “We put lights, bells, gifts, toffees, and a small Santa Claus, and flowers.”
Sigil Shafiq is one of Dr. Maqbool’s many family friends who take part in the festivities a day before Christmas.
“We love to put on festive clothes,” Shafiq told Arab News. “We usually like to get bright colors for Christmas like red and blue and green. And we like to buy bangles and dangly earrings and we like to put henna,” she added.
Shafiq said they spend time getting ready for Christmas by visiting beauty parlors and getting facials.
“It’s a good time. We have fun doing it,” she said.
For Dr. Maqbool and other Christians around the world, Christmas brings with it friends and family members from far and wide.
“All my sisters lovingly come all the way from Dubai, from Australia, [and] from Canada. We have a big gathering in our house,” she said.
With only a day left before Christmas, excitement hangs heavy in the house. And Dr. Maqbool is quite pleased with all that has been achieved so far.
“A Merry Christmas to everybody from Pakistan, my beloved homeland my beloved country,” she said.
Lights, carols, and decorations: In Karachi, a Christian family’s home comes alive every Christmas
https://arab.news/pk7as
Lights, carols, and decorations: In Karachi, a Christian family’s home comes alive every Christmas
- At Dr. Jennifer Maqbool’s house, Christmas celebrations involve singing carols, cooking up sumptuous meals, and plenty of decorations
- Millions of Christians around the world celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, whom they consider the savior of humanity
Rising stars hit the runway for Chanel
DUBAI/PARIS: Rising fashion stars from across the world hit the runway at designer Matthieu Blazy’s latest show for Chanel.
Staged during Paris Fashion Week, the likes of Mona Tougaard and Bhavitha Mandava, who in 2025 made headlines as the first Indian model to open a show for Chanel, walked the runway.
For the show Tougaard, who has Danish, Turkish, Somali and Ethiopian ancestry, showed off a patchwork look with cutouts across the bodice. For her part, Mandava showed off a series of casual options, including knitwear.
Six months into his tenure at the Parisian stalwart, Blazy staged his second ready-to-wear collection at Paris Fashion Week Monday, where brightly colored cranes rose from a holographic floor — a deliberate signal that the construction is ongoing.
The audience inside the Grand Palais suggested the foundations are solid: Margot Robbie, Oprah, Jennie, Kylie Minogue, Lily-Rose Depp, Teyana Taylor and Olivia Dean all turned up.
Blazy took his cue from a quote from Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel: “We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.”
The collection was structured around that tension — plain against spectacular, function against fantasy — with a discipline his sprawling debut last October sometimes lacked.
The opening looks were austere by design.
Black knit zip-ups, tweed blousons and boxy overshirts arrived with little more than four gold buttons to signal they belonged to Chanel.
In the vast runway space, they could read as underwhelming. But Blazy’s point was architectural: the suit, he said, is “the first brick” — and everything else rises from it.
The collection’s most provocative move was its silhouette.
Blazy pulled waistlines dramatically low — belts slung to mid-thigh, pleated skirts starting where blazers ended.
The references were retro flapper filtered through a modern lens: drop-waisted twinsets, patchwork dresses with floral embroidery, vivid patterned knits with a twenties pulse.
A furry coat in bold geometric color could have been worn in a chic part of London's Camden.Whether the ultra-low waistlines will land with the well-heeled clients who pack Chanel’s front rows is another question.
Selling a radically new proportion to women with deep loyalty to the house is a different challenge than winning critical praise. The final stretch answered that concern with force. Sequined plaid suits arrived in dazzling color.
