with twenty-three years (and an increasing waistline) under my belt, the festive season seems to bring about a new perspective. i know this sounds very evangelical and all, but it wasn't till several days ago that i started thinking about Christmas and what i meant to me. but okay, to be fair, i want you to think about it too: what does Christmas mean to you? a Nigella-inspired turkey (i'm seriously watching too much Discovery Travel & Living)? 'i-don't-want-to-spend-Christmas-alone' relationships (the air steward and me was such)? the frantic search for Christmas wish lists? an even more frantic search for marked-down purchases in the bargain bin? Christmas sex? Christmas albums? attending church services?

well, i can't help but love Christmas. and with a 13th month bonus this year, it's actually the only season whereby i bother spending a lot of money on people. for the most part of the year, i'm constantly living on tenterhooks, wondering whether i have enough to tide me through the day. call me a scrooge or just plain practical, but if you don't even have money for yourself, how are you going to have money for others? no matter what, this is the first Christmas whereby i blew close to $600 on colleagues, friends and loved ones. i bought Pangkeng a Crumpler (he bought me a Braun Buffel), several gay people New Urban Male vouchers, handbags for several girls and loads of candied foods for acquaintances.

indeed, Christmas is the only time when people are generous enough to pause and think of others. that perhaps, is one of the many things that Christmas means to me this year.


my paternal family have a yearly tradition that we started nearly a decade ago. and i think it's a really good one that every family should have. no i'm not talking about the Christmas gift exchange (we started this great tradition practically twenty-three years ago). every year, my paternal family would host a potluck at a random relative's place. there would be a different food theme every year. this year was a boring 'western cuisine' filled with meat from every four-legged creature that our good Lord created for farmlife (turkeys have four legs, just that two of them look like wings). the previous year was a Japanese christmas whereby my mom wowed the crowd away with her Golden Curry tonkatsu.

this year is very different for many of us cousins. as most of us are working or studying in tertiary institutions now, we are all expected to bring some object of worth to the potluck. one brought a girlfriend (no, we didn't have her for Christmas). another presented a Christmas compilation to the various families in the paternal side. while another generous one brought a decadent chocolate cake with an ice-cream filling that melts way before you could even put it in your mouth (it was a really messy and liquidated affair). me, you're asking? i brought a roll of honey-baked ham. or as i would like to call it in Hokkien terms: 'ji bu ham' (one roll of ham). it wasn't received at the potluck as turkey, beef and chicken had already made their presence at the affair. but i'm sure they will think of me during breakfast today.

the food at these potlucks is one thing. but i think most of the adults are looking forward to the portion after the food, what i would like to call 'The Sharing Sessions'. given that my entire paternal family is supposedly Christian, we are all wrestled into a time of counting our blessings for the year. 'supposedly Christian' because i can think of a few relatives who don't exactly exhibit the most 'Christianly' of behaviours. mainly though, it's just me. what usually happens is that we all pull up chairs and various bit of bric-a-brac that we can park our expanded asses on and start recollecting what the Lord has done for us this year.

it's quite a struggle for me every year as i think of something good to say. when The Sharing Sessions were first initiated, i focused on studies and health. the general lines of sharing would be like 'Ehrm.... thank God that i'm still alive and that i still have an education despite bad results this year.' the family would constantly interject with irritating bits of sentences like 'and what about a girlfriend?' it took them about five years of conditioning before they realized that i wasn't that interested in a relationship during this prime of my youth. of course, that's the 'official' statement. you guys and all my various male-gendered sex partners know the reality behind it.

these Sharing Sessions would normally be emotional for some of the relatives. it's a constant running joke that a tissue box would have to be present at these sessions. one random relative would throw a box of Kleenex to whoever that they think was about to unload a barrage of emotion onto the family. some of the really horrid excuses that these relatives use to cry are stuff like 'Oh! My child is so useless, always quarrelling with me!!!' or 'Oh my Children are crap in their studies!!' my parents take extra caution to never let on anything about the family. a decade of Sharing Sessions later, my parents have yet to shed an emo tear. inside i'm thinking 'Heng man!'

this year however, the atmosphere seems a little different. like i said, everybody's now a little more matured, a little more adult-like, a little more ploughed down by the realities of this world. the various cousins shared things that veered away from studies and health. some had more pressing issues like blessings for surviving through National Service, providing students (there are six teachers in the family, one of them a kindergarten principal), protection at work (four nurses), safety on the roads (one taxi-driver), good business (my uncle who opened the Nursing Degree education centre and a contractor uncle), greater understanding of the bible (one pastor), better health (my grandmother who's nearly a bionic woman now that she has had so many screws and metal bits implanted into her), etc.

my father however, had a more pressing concern. just as the Sharing Session was about to commence, he asked a relative (whose house we hosted this year's potluck at) for a Chinese bible. having lived with my father for many years, i have come to understand that this is not a sign to dread for. arm my father with a Bible, and he thinks he's invincible. just as about to start sharing his bit of prayers and thanksgiving, he started flipping to the book of Revelations. and if there's one thing that should never be brought up during Christmas, it's that the end of the world is near (which is basically what the Revelations are all about). and true to his evangelical and zealous nature, he started sharing with the family the eight signs that indicated the second coming of the Lord. i shall spare you the depressing details and instead tell you that there was this awkward mood after the father finished his twenty minute exhortation.

the only time of the year where people are comforted by the fact that they still have family that still bother to meet up for a Christmas dinner and my father ruins it by sharing with everyone that 'The world is coming to an end but we'll all meet again in Heaven, ha ha!' (he said that, seriously). i was tempted to interject with 'but your son will still be here consorting with men, ha ha!', but bit my tongue down and went into a foetal position until the whole Revelations episode tided over. my father ended up not sharing anything about blessings and thanksgiving after that as he was so immersed in his exhortation. and nobody bothered to ask him for any prayer requests for the next year. it was that bad, yeap.

that was not all however. like i said, with the Bible in one hand, my father seems to think that makes him a bit of a Deacon or a Pastor of sorts. with each sharing that the various relatives did from that point on, he started to chastise them for not giving them the glory. of course, this was done in a good-hearted nature. like say, my nursing cousin who's in the same nursing degree course as me asked for protection against the unseen forces during the night shifts. and straight away, my father reached for the bible and flipped to Job quoting that the Lord will not let the unseen forces attack Christians without permission. and even if He does, it's not something that we will not be able to withstand ('Ghosts need permits from God to scare you, ha ha!').

thank goodness all this zealousness was quelled when my uncle (the one who opened the nursing degree) said the following, 'Teo (my father's surname) ah, sorry to interrupt. but we need to carry on with the sharing as we're running out of time and some of our children need to go home.' (it was already 11pm then). indeed, there's a time to be Christianly, and there's a time to be secular.

inside, i'm going 'Heng ah!'

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