It’s FINALLY December, at the end of which (the 23rd, 24th in my opinion) one should start hanging up those Christmas (or Season’s, as it’s called now) decorations, not the 3rd of November. (Still, even for an old cynic and bah humbug-monger like me, the excessive Christmas two month hysteria must be working, for during all of last month I’ve had this peculiar need to buy a lot of stuff for myself, and to socialise.)
But oh, imagine how much more Christmassy it would be if the baubles went up and the trees were lit on the 24th of December, and for one week only! One week of intense old-fashioned European Christmas feeling - so much better than the drawn out enforced shopping pressure we have in HK today.
But that would be like hoping that the government would stop putting up railings and concreting country paths; it would be like hoping they wouldn’t put up banners saying NO SITTING, NO SMOKING bigger than the areas in which you’re not allowed to sit and smoke.
As usual, IFC2 wins the competition for ugliest, most bizarre Christmas decorations. That I’ve seen. In Central. This year (re-use has never been a feature with IFC2) the management of IFC2 has come up with a novel idea: Santa Claus as Leonardo Da Vinci as a young man.
Something about Santa Claus trying out Da Vinci’s inventions … or ideas that would later lead to inventions. There’s Santa slumped over a table exhausted from making wings flap, Santa looking through an early prototype of the binocular - and some boxes of various shapes and sizes,
all even more spectacularly tacky than the displays of last year. Well done.
The worst thing, again as usual, though, is the music. The enforced jollity Christmas music blaring out of every shop and thundering through the cavernous malls; originally beautiful carols and hymns rendered ugly and meaningless by having been jazzed up to sound like mere disco background music to egg people on to buy more, ever more, useless crap.
This year I’m not buying a single present. I mean, how many extra planes must they put on each year to carry tons and tons of stuff for people abroad which they don’t need and will never use, just because some geezer allegedly was born on a certain day and whose date of death changes every year according to … the moon? A whim?
No; I’ll put on a huge party for my good friends who are actually around, not spend money on cards which will be thrown away and presents which will scream “desperate last minute attempt” and not arrive until January 15th anyway, if ever, wrapped in kilometres of rainforest.
Party, togetherness, mulled wine, salmon, laugh, talk, cards. That’s the only Christmas you’ll ever get out of me from now on, people. I will not feel pressured to spend a lot of money on useless crap just because of some bloody religion in which neither I nor the recipients of the crap believe. Consider yourselves forewarned.
Well, I kind of like starting on the solstice (12/21) (my wedding anniversary) and continuing through the proper 12 Days of (after) Christmas which go to Jan. 6.
Then comes Chinese New Year. A solar festival followed by a lunar one!
We’ve got a Christmas ban at home until after Sinterklaas (6 December), my daughter is getting into trouble at school since she refuses to sing Christmas carols before then! It’s hilarious. She’s usually a good girl, but not when it gets in the way of her principles!
We’ve given up on gifts a while ago and in lieu give a sizeable donation to a designated charity each year. The money will go much further that way and not end up in a landfill. Especially since the food banks in HK are crying out for donations this time of year.
Ah Sin, every year at Christmass you seem to sound worse than ebeneezer Scrooge. “Bah humbug” or worse seems to roll off your tongue just like the rest of your cusing the rest of the year.
Is there ANYTHING, even the tiniest little drop of anything that makes you say something nice without it being whipped into the cocoons of spiteful soundimg curses that you utter both in type and orally.
BAH HUMBUG!
Yeah - fancy that; I don’t even go into raptures over CHRISTMAS AT IFC2! There must be something wrong with me.
No, Jimsee, there is nothing. Not the tiniest little drop of anything.
“Whipped into the cocoons of spiteful sounding curses” - wey hey I get your drift. Ish.
By the way, now I’m in Guangzhou. I love Guangzhou. Last night we drank champagne and ate marinated salmon. I love champagne and marinated salmon. There. Have I filled the “nice” quota for the rest of the year?