It is my "getting out of Christmas card writing by sending one generic Christmas letter to everybody I know" time of year again.
I have a small confession to make. I wrote a particularly lengthy Christmas blog last year around the same time but it was so depressing I decided not to post it. Indeed, I had hoped that 12 months on I would be in better spirits given we have had a fantastic year with a visit back home to the UK in the summer and gallivanting around Asia during the holidays. And Singapore definitely feels more like a second home than it did this time last year.
However, recent events tend to overshadow the joys of months gone by. I have been slightly laid out the last two weeks which has made me grumpy. I have only had one fluey virus since arriving in Singapore and have been struck down again with another strange bug. Given we are in Asia and the head cold and cough hooplah of our northern hemisphere days are different strains to the ones found down south means you tend to get struck down with odd symptoms that last forever. They do not consist of anything like a cold or cough. Just lethargy, a feverish feeling without a fever, a grumbling tummy and a nose stink.
To add insult to illness I got bitten on my face by some flying beastie two weeks ago. The bite became infected and I have been walking around with an enormous purple boil on my face.
I refuse to go to the doctors for any of these ailments even though I feel quite lousy as I can imagine for my nose stink (I assume this is a sinus problem) and my heavy head I will be sent for an MRI and I believe the routine testing for an infected zit is a colonoscopy.
So you will forgive my poor mood.
On top of all of that Christmas time is very nearly upon us and if I forget about my diseases I should be getting very excited as we are not going to be in Singapore for Christmas but going on holiday instead.
Christmas in the stifling heat is a miserable experience and one I never ever want to do again after last year. I know the region has been managing just fine for many years with hot 25th but I am afraid it really isn't for me. I want the cold, the log fire (and not on an Ipad app), long weekend walks with a freezing face and a nice glass of mulled wine and mince pie on my return.
So we are departing the island on Christmas Eve and not returning until January 10th 2015 if you are interested in burglary.
We have never been away at Christmas since having the children and I am in a little bit of a quandary what with Santa having a fairly strict delivery schedule. We have always had a bit of a problem with explaining Santa's movements. Does Santa bring all the presents or just the stocking presents? And if he brings the presents under the tree then why do they say "To Clemily lots of love from Goompa" and that sort of thing. Surely they should all say "Love from Santa". It is terribly confusing. We have fudged the issue in the past by saying the Christmas tree presents are from us as a family and the stocking presents are from Santa. Luckily our children are too stupid to question this cockeyed logic given both materialise on the 25th of December.
This year we are leaving on the 24th so do you think we can ask Santa to deliver the tree presents early or just put them out on the 23rd night without an explanation? And what about the stockings? We are taking them with us on holiday but how will Santa get them into the hand luggage in the overhead lockers while we are en route? He is magical so it shouldn't be a problem although I do feel a little bad that the kids will be opening their stockings in an airport.
Actually I should not feel bad as frankly no presents should be given this year as we are taking them on a holiday of a lifetime. Admittedly it is our holiday of a lifetime as opposed to theirs but still, the holiday in itself should be their best Christmas present ever.
I am feeling particularly mean about Christmas presents this year after watching a short video of a young Argentinian boy receiving a present on his birthday from his parents who were struggling for money. He was given a chopping board and on opening it he smiled and embraced his mother with genuine thanks. Then his parents told him they had a surprise present under the table. The parents had scrimped and saved to buy him a small tablet pc and if you have seen the video and the little boys reaction it not only melts your heart but questions everything you have done so far as a parent. He cries his little heart out with gratitude and before he can even open it or play with it he embraces his parents again.
This video has had a huge impact on me and touched me so much that I really have been reviewing how I have raised my kids who in the main are okay, as far as kids go. Although, when I showed the clip to them and said look at this sweet child and how grateful he is to his parents because he understands the sacrifices they have made to get him this special present, my five year old said "oh my god.... this is so boring.... it's just some boy crying". Yes, nice children indeed. Compassionless gits.
So I am on a mission this Christmas to get my children to understand the value of money and to appreciate how lucky they are. You would think this would be simple but it isn't. In fact I think it is too late.
I was thinking back to my childhood and all the Christmas's past. My parents were not well off but we lived a comfortable life. We had close family and friends who kindly bought me presents for Christmas but my parents would only buy me one and it was the same form for birthdays. I remember being overjoyed with it as well as all the other lovely gifts I was fortunate enough to receive from generous Aunts and Uncles.
When I think about my passions now however, it really isn't for things. My biggest love is travelling and I have come to the conclusion the reason I am so obsessed with holidays and travelling and seeing the world is because we never ever went on a single family holiday EVER. My father was married to his job and even though we had the means to go away we never did and I am not talking about anywhere exotic. Just a short trip somewhere in the UK would have been wonderful. I think my desperation to see the world perhaps stems from the fact I saw nothing of it for the first 23 years of my life.
My other great passion is interiors. I can once again blame my parents for this because we had the most grotesque furniture when I was growing up. In fact when my Dad's bosses came over for dinner one night in the early 1980s one of them remarked that our front room looked like a funeral home as we had dark purple walls and not the lovely Farrow and Ball kind but proper, dark vampiric purple. We had orange, black and red swirly carpet, which my Dad would not get rid of because we could not afford to but mainly because he thought it was Axminster and a hand me down sofa set that was made out of hay and the colour of cheesy wotsits. Thank God the heavens opened in 1987 and our house was completely flooded.
Anyway, I am rambling on. I think the passions you have as an adult, certainly in my case, stem from what you were deprived of as a child. Mine is travel and I feel endlessly guilty about it. Mainly because my friend is holding me and all other parents who take their children travelling around the world responsible for the destruction of the environment, the hole in the ozone layer and general demise of the earth. I still think Chinese industry and cow farts are more to blame than me but I do take her points on carbon footprints and wastage.
Yet while I know these trips are great extravagances I am still so excited, thankful and grateful that we are able to do them. And this is where my problem lies. What have my children been deprived of in their short lives? Absolutely nothing! We certainly don't buy them much and I stick to my parents' rule of no present unless it's Birthdays or Christmas but even on those occasions, it is not one present but two or three and four plus thanks to our soppy idiocy for our children and kind hearted friends and family. How can they appreciate what they have when they have so much?
My immediate reaction to that heartening video of the little Argentinian boy along with all the other internet trolls on the conversation thread was "yeah, bloody kids nowadays, all spoilt brats" etc etc but really it isn't their fault it is ours as parents.
Like I say, generally I think my kids are quite nice, reasonably polite and appreciative (well, the big one is) but given how lucky they are what on earth are they going to want into adulthood?
For my 7 year old daughter, her huge desire at the moment is to have her ears pierced and wear a bikini. I have forbidden the bikini because looking sexy on a beach should not be in the scope of being 7 years old. I have also denied her the earrings as I think she is too young although I have no logical reason for why I think this. Based on this I can only assume my daughter at the age of 39 will be writing her blog saying how she was so deprived as a child she pierced every single bit of her anatomy including her internal organs while not leaving her house because she was fed up of travelling.
I have no idea how to answer this question of not depriving ones children but still keeping them humble and appreciative of the lives they have while so many around the world their age have nothing. We will just keep plodding along and trying to do our best and hope by the time the kids are grown up they will no longer be emotionless compassionless gits and if they aren't then we will go back to the old fashioned way of instilling good values in them by hitting them with a belt.
So after all of my Christmas preachy parenting plight I guess thoughts move to next year.
The small child and retarded adult in me are particularly excited about next summer. Avengers Age of Ultron, Kung Fu Panda III, Star Wars and Jurassic World are all out next year. I am hoping when I see Jurassic World I don't suffer the same fate that I did in 1993 when seeing Jurassic Park with a friend on its first day of general release. I was so scared and tense through the whole movie that my legs fell asleep during those three hours and I fell down two flights of stairs after getting up from my seat.
Other than that we are back in the UK for a short time in the Summer and are once again making the most of our time in Asia to see the region as best as we can. So there is plenty to be thankful and excited about.
Unfortunately, a year does not go by anymore without us losing someone we love. And this year has been particularly heart breaking. For all of you whose lives are a little less bright due to loss, please know that we love you and will be wishing you strength during this time of year when absences are so much harder to bear.
Finally, given I will shortly be hitting an age when I will be swapping one unpleasant routine female examination for another unpleasant routine female examination, it does put into perspective what is important in life and with that, all I wish for you, your partners, your children and your families is the very very best of health and happiness and all our love for a peaceful Christmas and New Year.
