Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas - through the eyes of an outsider.

When we were young, christmas was one of those much sought after holidays in a kid's calendar (among a selection of CNY, new year, birthday and maybe children's day). it ranked pretty highly. when i was a kid i used to have a little tree near the balcony of the house (that seemed to be falling apart year after year and was finally disposed of when we moved), and we used to hang lots of little ornaments and angels, styrofoam presents and that big bright shiny silver star at the top of the tree. i remember climbing onto the side cupboards to plant that star :)

presents would line the bottom of the tree and would be opened on xmas day itself - stayed up for santa too, but always fell asleep by the time it hit 1230. Of course at the bottom of the tree there'd be only 2 presents, 1 each for me and my brother. and we'd open with glee and most of the time we'd know what it was, cos we probably dragged our mum to the department store to "choose" our xmas present for the year. On some lucky years, we'd spend christmas in a local hotel. when i was young my family never travelled overseas together; we only took short stays in many local hotels.

and so, it was probably in either the Hilton, Orchard Hotel, Otani, Rasa Sentosa Shangri-La or the Meritus Mandarin that i probably spent maybe 1 or 2 christmases. If it was hilton, then presents would come from the forum toysrus! i remember asking for polly pocket one year.

as we slowly grew older, christmas was more of a friends thing. hanging out with friends to do the countdown, thronging orchard road and catching that darned last train. strolling around admiring the lights, sounds and spirit in the air. And past that 18-year old boundary, christmas was celebrated with xmas eve parties in clubs, bars and so on.

And so, at 20 i've reached a kinda DMZ. the period of time between enjoying clubbing-countdowns and going for stay at home christmas parties organised by friends (or worse, self-organised!). So i end up spending the christmas eve at home, playing games on the computer, watching variety shows on TV. 12 came and went and it just wasnt particularly eventful at all.

Let me try predict the future christmases - perhaps nice homely christmas parties would follow. complete with cranberries, turkey n all that jazz. top it up with some bubbly, or white wine. Then after that would come the family family type of christmas; the one where its now your turn to bring your kid out to shop for his xmas present, and then u unknowingly allow yourself to splurge an exhorbitant amount on a christmas present (think giant railway/gundam/lego sets) which he chose.

Oh, the life cycle. the karma. :P well it certainly has been a silent night for me. not that im really complaining, im just procrastinating packing my bags cos we did hell lot of shopping today. merry xmas all!

Mrs Brightside at 1:23 am

{xoxo}