Misletoes

This year was the first year where Christmas didn't exist.

Though my family never celebrated Christmas (us being Asian and all), Christmas was always an unescapable fact of life. In Australia, in England, in Canada. Christmas arelways seemed to creep earlier and earlier into our consciousness each year, when we'd walk into a mall and hear the familiar tingles of Christmas songs ad nauseum and sigh Oh is it that time of the year already?

Red, green, gold and silver twinkle high and low. Ornamented trees and reindeers in David Jones (Sydneysiders will know this is a big chain of department stores), or that fucking huge nativity scene with the garish coloured lights and plastic camels on Pennent Hills Road or thereabouts. But it was definitely in the Bible Belt of Sydney.

There would always be reports on the News at Six on Ten (at six o'clock, on Channel Ten) about consumer spending and customer confidence and how much we're all putting on credit cards like it's a scandal. And how the smart ones are waiting to purchase that big ticket white good till after Boxing Day when the sales start.

And for the past three Christmases it was the biting and soul-awakening cold. The kind of Christmas image seen and experienced in most of the world but a wonder to me but somehow made all the sense. Santa looked right here, against the white snow in his fur-lined coat. And so did the turkey. The Germans know how to put on Christmas. Sucking back a mug of gluhwein and munching on cinnamon biscuits at the Christmas market in the cold, among twinkling lights, watching steam rise and disappate with each increasingly alcoholic breath. Nose and cheeks red from cold and heat but never given a second thought. Just tug that hat down a little more securely over the ears and do a little jig on the spot.

Christmas didn't exist this year. I went into the office and did my nine hours. I went in again today. It's Boxing Day, elsewhere in the world. I will go into the office again tomorrow and the day after. What are these street posters that I see? Christmas Hip Hop Party. Buffet dinner, only NT$1500 per person. What baffoonery. A piss-weak attempt at a foreign concept and it's irritating. Like scratching nails on a blackboard.

Every year, Norway presents a huge Christmas tree to Britain to thank the Brits for saving their arse in WWII. The tree is erected in Trafalgar Square along with a plaque stating this very fact.

History. Tradition. Christmas.