Christmas - past and present

Tomorrow is the day when we will again have access to our internet connection. =) Pardon me, I'm very lousy where technical terms are concerned.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, dearest computer, I shall once again be able to run my fingers over your keyboard.

It gets me very irritated when I'm blogging and my mom keeps walking past me from behind. Not many windows to switch to.

Christmas is in 10 days. What wishes/resolutions do you have? What about presents? Do you have the practice to giving/receiving presents on Christmas?

Though my family is not christian, we do have the practice of doing so only because the weather and occasion seems right for some gift giving and receiving. In the past when the weather used to be really really cold during December, there'd be a Christmas tree in the living room, one where my father, brother and myself would set up and decorate. I would tear cotton wool into small pieces (really really small amounts) and put it on different parts of the tree, then on two small pieces of "snow" near the top of the tree, there'd be two tiny reindeers standing opposite each other. Then there'd be tiny presents ornaments, glittery/shiny balls, one very old santa claus, flashing lights that have music/lights that don't have music/lights that don't flash (depending on the different years when old lights are spoilt and new ones are bought), some more decorations and a star which is slightly rusted, right at the top of the tree. Actually I don't remember the star or whatever it was that was at the top of the tree. It just sounds right to mention a star. Hehz. Odd? That of everything on a Christmas tree, I remember other ornaments but not the most important one at the top, the one which every kid wants to put on, according to stories in story books. But then that's in story books. I remember the empty boxes posing as presents placed at the foot of the tree too. When we were still really young, there would be real presents there amongst the fake ones, no doubt placed there by Santa. In the morning we would be delighted at the small "hill" of presents, each one labelled to either my brother, me, my father or my mother. Like how my father loved Christmas, we kids loved Christmas too.

Then we grew up. Decorating trees didn't seem as much fun anymore. There was no more "snow" on the tree though the reindeer still stood at the same place. The lights didn't emit anymore music nor flash. There were no more real presents beneath the tree. Sometimes I don't even remember the tree being there. The nights were warmer, it didn't feel Christmassy.

The problems with humans is that sometimes we can grow old enough to become young again. Fantasies and 8-year-old stories are interesting again; games are no longer childish; running, singing and laughing out in public are not only the privilege of the kids, those old enough claim them as well. We grow to be old, then we grow older to be young again. Maybe because we want to be young again the older we get. Yeah, that could be it. In any case, this is the same thing for Christmas. Somehow I want to set up the tree and decorate it again, buy colourful flashing lights with christmassy music, tear up cotton wool for fake snow, put a star at the top of the tree and to receive presents as well as give presents (if I have the money!) Yet all this cannot compare with the joy and excitement felt when I was still a kid during Christmas. It ain't only Christmas, it's for every other festival as well.

I don't have a Christmas wish, never made them, probably never will.