Tis' the season to be jolly ~ Fa la la la la, la la la la!
(above pic ~ my feeble attempt at decorating my very cluttered office desk)
Mike and I cannot believe that this year, we had completed our Christmas shopping 2 days before Christmas. For as long as we can remember, we are usually still wrapping Christmas presents on the day itself! Although our immediate families are small, the number of relatives in our extended family (aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews etc) is sizeable.
It's nice for a change. With our shopping done, what it means is we can actually take our time, sit back and really soak in what Christmas really means for us.
One year, us 'smarty pants' relatives tried to do the right thing and exalt the true spirit of Christmas which meant the adults coming to a consensus or rather, coming to our senses (of course unanimous agreement only amongst the weary gift-buying adults) that there would be no exchanging of gifts. We agreed that if we felt like it, we could buy but only for the kids. That didn't sit very well with the kids and they revolted (ok, that's putting it mildly). Some kids received pressies, some did not. Some gave and some did not receive. That resolution got chucked out the window the very next year and so it was back to the gifting process!
Mike is one person who loves Christmas. I mean, REALLY, REALLY loving it. In June, he'll be telling me that it's only 6 months to Christmas. By September, you can hear his heart beating to the rhythm of Jingle Bells and at the end of October, his tree and Christmas decor will be up! (In our lifetime, we've only met one other neighbour who was as passionate about Christmas as him! She lived across the street from our house and you could hear both Mike and her blasting their stereos with Christmas carols way ahead of the Orchard Road light up!)
This year though, we didn't put up a fake tree nor did we buy a real tree. What we did was dig out a real living pine tree from our Grandma's garden and plonk it into a pot (Granny was moving out). It's a very tall tree but relatively 'slim'. We had already given away our fake tree and most of the ornaments to our Filipina helper when we moved house in June but I was adamant we should not waste money on a real tree this year. Anyway, Mike lugged it home and it really looked quite pathetic in our living room. We were disappointed with how lame it looked and had actually changed our minds and gotten ready to go buy a real tree. We'd already gotten changed and had stepped out the main door when Mike decided to give it one last shot by re-entering our home! (Ok, that ended up with me, waiting for him and falling asleep on the couch as he waved his magic wand over the tree). Once the tree had been decorated, lit up and we had pressies strewn below it, it didn't look so bad after all (and then I had been unable to sleep the whole night because I had fallen asleep on the couch!).
It's Christmas Eve and we don't have to rush for any last minute presents. That's a really cool position to be in this year! We're looking forward to going to Christmas Mass and tucking into all the 'Chrismassy' food. But best of all, we're looking forward to being with our family and friends.
So from all of us at Cartoon Lagoon, we wish you
A VERY BLESSED CHRISTMAS!
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