Bob Mitchell’s Christmas in Oak Harbor will be colored red, white and blue this year.

Bob is happy because he’ll spend his first Christmas as an American citizen. He’s originally from Ontario, Canada, but it was a stint in Saudi Arabia that led him to America.

He met his American wife Deana at a party for westerners in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. In the 1980s, Deana was working as a nurse at a Saudi eye hospital and Bob was employed by British Aerospace to teach Saudi air force pilots how to fly.

Bob and Deana took jobs the Middle East for adventure and good pay, but they said it was difficult to adapt to living in essentially a locked down society. Westerners socialized privately, away from disapproving Saudi’s, who also separate themselves further, keeping female family members behind walls with barred windows in fenced compounds.

The difference between east and west is evident in traditional garments Saudi men and women wear.

Deana took a moment from reminiscing to show a photo of herself wearing the traditional heavy burqa that covered everything except her eyes. The heat inside one of those concealing, dark-colored and heat absorbent garments is punishing, she said.

“You’ll notice what he’s is wearing,” she said.

Bob was dressed in the cooler traditional Saudi male equivalent, a long white, loose-fitting caftan and small head gear.

Despite the creature discomforts, the Mitchells spent 10 years in Saudi Arabia. When they arrived in the U.S., Whidbey Island was one of the places on Deana’s list of possible home sites. Her dad was in the military and she had spent time in the area in earlier years. Some of Bob’s children live in Victoria, British Columbia, and some of hers live nearby so the Mitchells decided Oak Harbor was the perfect spot on the map to satisfy their needs.

A location not far from the border was desirable, because their blended family is made up of seven grown children and nine grandchildren.

Bob, a former Canadian Air Force pilot, landed a job with Harbor Airlines until it closed up shop. Then he took a job as a bus driver with the Oak Harbor School District.

“It’s perhaps the best group of people I have worked with,” he said.

Earlier this year, Bob decided the time was right to become an American citizen.

“If a country’s good enough to make a living in, it’s a priviledge and maybe an insult not to,” he said of his decision to become an American.

He only had to wait four months, but the process can take up to 18 months or more in some instances. Meantime, he studied citizenship materials and passed the exam on American history and government. He went through official citizenship ceremonies Nov. 1 in Seattle.

It was an touching experience to see 140 people from 41 different nations adopted into a new homeland, he said.

Then they were handed voter registration cards and welcomed to America in a video speech by President George Bush.

When Bob returned to work, his co-workers in the Oak Harbor School District welcomed him with open arms and some thoughtful gifts. One person handy with tools created a shadow box. Inside the glass-covered box, a brass plate notes his citizenship beside a U.S. flag that flew over the nation’s capitol building on July 4, 1976.

Does he feel any different crossing the border now that he’s a citizen?

It’s subtle, he said.

“You feel like you are an American, that you belong,” he said. “I now feel that I am coming home.”