As I lay on my bed a few nights ago, I thought I should write something for Christmas. But I’m not really sure exactly on what.
Burrowing under my quilt, I thought maybe I should write about how it’s always so rainy, so much so that my garden always got waterlogged, and how, as a child, my brother used to coax me to play with him in the gooey slimy mud, and how we were reprimanded when we went in, covered in sludge, at dusk for dinner.
Or perhaps I might write about how my parents used to save their hard-earned money from their teachers’ salaries to take us down to Singapore almost every year at Christmas time. We used to get to choose one toy, and the decision was a painful delight, and the anticipation of the toy – on the trip home, and through to Christmas day – was such pleasurable torment! Yet, the memory of that one toy each Christmas from Singapore, in hindsight, is probably one of the greatest treasures we have received.
I could always write about my first Christmas away from home when I was eleven. I was in New Zealand, enjoying the delights of fresh dairy products every day, and unlimited number of books allowed to be borrowed out from the public library. I used to borrow twelve books and finish them all off in three days while eating chocolates and marshmallows and ice-cream on the deck behind the house. I must have forgotten to call my parents on Christmas day, what with the books and the chocolates and ice-cream and marshmallows. When they did call, I couldn’t say a word. I think I must have forgotten how much I missed them until I heard their voices on the phone. I might have possibly cried.
Or I could write about Christmases in sleety icy London, when all my friends had gone home, and I was usually alone, although I was in one of the most international and crowded cities in the world. It’s funny how alone one can feel among so many people. I could write about how I would be treated to a fifteen minute call from home on Christmas morning (Christmas evening in Malaysia), and how those fifteen minutes would warm me more than any amount of cider and mince pies consumed during the day.
Maybe I could write about love. And how my experience of love has grown over the years, as I too have grown. I could tell about the love I received from the nucleus of my family, to the vast collective love of everyone who now holds me dear, and how this love makes me feel small and unworthy and a little bit flattered too. And how Christmas is the time to remember when that love was made flesh centuries ago, but now can be seen in all the faces I see, not only on Christmas day, but every day of my life.
And I felt, almost as if I was told, “There, you have your piece for Christmas,”
And may you, dear readers, have peace this Christmas.
