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Dubai: Eid in the UAE often brings a slower rhythm. Offices close, families gather, and the days feel lighter. For the essential workers and busy professionals who keep the country running on public holidays, the celebration looks a little different. For them, Eid does not stop, it simply shifts shape.
It is not about grand plans or full days off. It is about finding the moments where you can, and making them count.
Speaking to a few residents across different professions, one thing becomes clear. Celebration does not disappear when you are working. It just finds smaller spaces to exist in.
Eid between appointments
For Khalida Saqib, a Pakistani beauty professional, Eid this year is being built around her work schedule rather than the other way around. Eid is one of the busiest times of year in her line of work, so stepping away is not really an option.
She will mostly be at the salon on the day itself, fitting celebration in wherever there is a gap. If time allows, she is hoping to get to Eid prayer, and a special Pakistani dinner is on the cards too.
The Eid Milan party, the post-Eid gathering that many South Asian families hold to celebrate together, will come a little later on the second day.
She has already been doing the things that make Eid feel like Eid, shopping with her sister and friends during Ramadan, giving gifts to her friends here in the UAE, and preparing for the season in her own way.
She also has a new addition to the family this year, a young baby, which gives the holiday a different kind of meaning altogether.
It has been a few years since she last celebrated Eid in Pakistan, back in 2021, where the traditions feel different. “In Pakistan, on the day they gift stuff to each other,” she explains, describing an energy that is hard to replicate abroad, surrounded by extended family, Eidi changing hands, and the particular joy of being home. For now, she carries those memories with her and builds new ones here.
Finding Eid in the in-between moments
Abdusalam Para, an Indian hotel supervisor in Dubai, has a thoughtful perspective on what it means to mark a holiday when work does not pause for it. The day might be full, but that does not mean it cannot still feel special.
For him, celebrating Eid on a work day is about intention over duration. “It is not about the length of the celebration but more about intention,” he says. That might mean starting the morning with prayer, putting on something special before a shift, sharing greetings with colleagues in the corridor, or planning a meal with loved ones once the day is done.
He is also honest about the emotional weight of being away from family on a day like this. “Being alone on Eid can feel heavy,” he says, but he has found his own ways of marking the occasion, cooking favourite dishes, dressing up regardless, giving to charity, or simply reaching out to others who might also be spending the day alone. For him, solitude does not have to mean emptiness. It can become something quieter and more personal instead.
This year, he feels the holiday carries even more significance than usual. “In this time of global tensions, Eid takes on a deeper meaning beyond festivity,” he says. “It becomes more about compassion, renewal, and shared humanity.”
Far from home but showing up anyway
Amira Sawadjaan Nadsali is a Filipino healthcare assistant in Dubai, and like many overseas workers, she will be reporting to work on Eid.
She is supporting her family back home in the Philippines, and for her, showing up on holidays is simply part of what that commitment looks like. “It’s sad being far away from them,” she says, “but I have to be strong to create a better future for us.”
That does not mean the day passes without celebration. After her shift, she is planning to head out to buy new clothes and shoes, prepare some sweets, and most importantly, take a moment for prayer.
She will also make sure to connect with her family over a video call, because even a few minutes of seeing familiar faces on a day like this can carry more than words. She is spending the holiday with colleagues and friends who have become her community here, which is its own kind of family.
“Even with the current situation, I still feel excited for Eid,” she says, and there is something quietly powerful about that.
The celebration carries on
What comes through in each of these stories is not a sense of missing out, but of adapting. These are people who have built lives far from where they started, who show up every day in roles that keep hospitals running, hotels operating, and people looking and feeling their best. On Eid, they do not stop.
They just find the pockets of joy that fit around everything else, a prayer here, a phone call there, a good meal at the end of a long shift.
While much of the country pauses, these are the people who keep things moving. And even in the middle of it all, they still find ways to celebrate.
