Dubai: It was a total of five days in Dubai – two on the way to her holiday in Vietnam and three on her way back to England. That’s all it took for English expat Alendra Christmas to decide to move to the city for good.“When I arrived back at Birmingham airport, I realised I needed to get my plans together to relocate,” she said.The reason was simple. She had finally found a city that felt like home.“I’ve lived in many countries when I was younger – different countries in Europe and for a few years in Australia, and honestly, nowhere felt like home. I genuinely feel like I was trying to find a place which held all the values I wanted to live by and gave me all the opportunities I was looking for,” she said.The move that changed everythingA little over two years since, the 33-year-old recruitment consultant has seen her life change in more ways than one.In 2024, she weighed 115kg and had never even touched a club. Today, she’s dropped 50 kilos and golf has become her entire personality, with Christmas even building a consultancy business around the golf course.“I’d always wanted to do business on a golf course – it’s a massive gap, a lot of business is done on the golf course. So, I honed in on that. I started with a golf community group and in about three weeks since I landed in Dubai, I started taking golf lessons and we just developed from there,” she said.Today, she spends every minute of the day around golf. If she’s not playing at the course, she is practising at the range. Other parts of the day, she’s either talking about golf or scrolling through golf videos. She runs an Instagram account - @golfgirl.dxb – sharing her golf journey and has become an ambassador for Prosports, a UAE-based golf retailer and distributor.Ask her what makes golf so addictive, and she doesn't hesitate – it's a game that has a way of taking over your life.“The golf community out here is incredible. You get to meet so many people. You could literally meet a stranger at the start of a session and spend four to four-and-a-half hours with them and by the end of it you talk about whether or not you want to potentially do it again,” she said.“Sometimes you might meet someone and not meet them ever again, sometimes it turns into a business opportunity, sometimes you make a friend,” she said.Even after the round ends, the social aspect continues in the clubhouse, she says, making golf feel like a lifestyle rather than just a sport.But what keeps her hooked the most is the challenge, discipline and total mental focus it requires from a person.“With golf you’re never the best, right? You’re always striving to get better and there may be days when you have a good rank and you want to come back again because of it, and there may be days when you completely lose your swing and that’s the thing that brings you back again. That’s the thing about golf – it just channels all of your energy,” she said.Bringing her A-gameChristmas credits the big change in her life to the decision to move to Dubai.“I just wasn’t in a place physically and mentally that I felt was going to be the right kind of headspace in Dubai – you have to be on you’re A-game to be successful here, don’t you,” she said.Determined to make a fresh start, she embarked on a weight-loss journey that included prescription medication, alongside regular exercise, to better match the ambition driving her.This ambition, she says, she has seen everywhere around her in Dubai, with an ‘everything is possible’ mindset, making her the biggest advocate for the city.“Positivity is key. It makes such a difference when you surround yourself with positive, hardworking people, and that's what I've found here. Then you look at how Dubai has grown over the years. To bring together people from all over the world and create something like this is honestly hard to comprehend. It's not just the infrastructure or the investment behind it, but the ability to attract people from every corner of the world and build a community together. That's absolutely incredible,” she said.For Christmas, there is no question about where she sees her future.“Even as someone who has been here for a short time, this was never a short-term move for me,” she said.“I’m not leaving. This is my home now.”A golf family, a golf futureChristmas with her seven-year-old Rottweiler, Nala.Today, Christmas lives in Dubai with her seven-year-old Rottweiler, Nala, but already has a picture of what that future looks like.“The dream that I tell everyone is – a course-facing villa in Jumeirah Golf Estates with a golf husband and two golf children … my golf prodigies,” she says with a laugh.And that’s a dream she’s working on every single day. One swing at a time.
