KARACHI: The shops famous for selling birthday decorations and greeting cards at Bohri Bazaar adorn a different identity this time of year. You will find the best Christmas decorations there, including, plastic Christmas trees, tree decorations, wreaths, stars, angels, jingle bells, glass balls, bows, plastic hanging garlands, greeting cards and so much more.

You will also find Christmas wearables such as festive cone hats with pom poms, Santa Claus suits and even Santa suits and dresses for girls. Of course the prevailing colours are red and green but you will also find contrast options in black, white and gold. The usual material used is velvet or flannel with furry borders. There are also stockings available in the same colours and material but those are not for wearing but for hanging up and filling up with goodies. Since these festive pieces are not manufactured locally, they are part of second-hand container lot items. Hence they are not expensive at all. A dress costs around Rs400 or even less and the hats are for Rs100 each.

This year, one could also find red velvet calendars to hang during the festive season. Some had pockets, perhaps to replace the stockings. Another new addition was the jute star. It wasn’t bright or blingy but a star made from jute string which was going to last for ages and maybe qualify as a classy heirloom. Rs1,500 was the price. One vendor, Mohammed Nasir, was also selling bright red hand towels for Rs250 a pair. If one had a snowman embroidered on it, the other had a Christmas tree on it. Likewise, if one had Santa Claus, the other had his sledge and reindeers.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Rafiq, a familiar face at Bohri Bazaar, who usually sells beaded jewellery there, was selling the usual but along with Christmas stuff. “I’m making hay while the sun shines,” he shrugged.

At Talha Akbar’s shop you could find the three types of Christmas trees, green, white and snowy green, from the smallest heights to the tallest. His shop also boasted of the biggest variety of wreaths. The small ones were available for Rs300 and the bigger ones for Rs500 each. The wreaths with decorations such as glass balls, bows and jingle bells were priced at Rs2,500 each.

A variety of Santa suits, cone hats, Xmas trees and many more items are available at Bohri Bazaar

The market had several children with their parents. A little girl was urging her mother buying somasay and pakoray at the Nimko store across the road to hurry as she wanted to find something to wear for her school Christmas programme. She was in luck as there were plenty of what she was looking for on the other side. There was also a grownup, Nomi Sampson, from Our Lady of Fatima, looking for Santa suits there for his students, who were going to sing in the school choir on

Christmas. He looked pleased with his finds. Just as one was turning to leave, one spotted a hidden narrow lane with probably the biggest secret of Bohri Bazaar. The entire lane had shops selling nothing but Christmas decorations. Here the plastic trees were already decorated for you with lights, glass balls, bows, stars and little red drums. So if the plain plastic trees, green, white or snowy green were available for two thousand to seven thousand depending on their sizes, here they were costlier depending on the amount of decorations on them.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2025