Christmas

With Christmas just over 2 days ago, everyone’s looking forward to the New Year. Post Christmas sales are happening all over Orchard Road, and Christmas songs are still on endless loop. while calendars are slashed to half price in anticipation of 2005.

This Christmas has been very different, what with school starting in December, right smack in the middle of my favourite festive season. (And I am told this is the only year it will ever happen.) Instead of the usual 2-month-long vacation break, all I got was a half-day off on Christmas Eve. I guess this is what it’s like in the working world.

The day before Christmas Eve, drained from the day at school, I headed down to town for a dinner with my girl pals. I decided to take a moment to find my brother a gift. And trust me, it’s hard to find a gift for a 16-year-old.
I wandered around a shop packed with teenagers finding presents for their friends and siblings. I saw a shirt I liked, and hoped he too would love it enough to wear it. I stared at the size label hard and wondered if he would drown in it. It was an extra large and as with most other items in the shop, the last piece. I made a frantic call to a friend, who happened to be at another outlet. In the midst of his own last minute Christmas shopping, he tried on a similar shirt and concluded that a large fits him, and my brother, who loves oversized shirts, would not drown in an extra large.

The thing about my brother and I, is that we agreed a month before that he wouldn’t buy me a gift, and neither would I for him. He did, however, suggest that I buy him a box of chocolates and he do the same, “just so dad won’t think we’re fighting”. Well, I laughed to myself and thought my brother would have a nice surprise. I was pleasantly surprised too, when he gave me a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, in his Christmas spirit.

I also made a last minute attempt to get something for my classmates and friends. This Christmas I couldn’t possibly use the excuse of “I won’t be seeing you anyway”. And a friend did ask me, jokingly, if I was giving her a present this year. At first, I wanted to bake some cookies, wrap them up and tie a ribbon around it, but I knew they couldn’t possibly be edible.

I finally decided stop at the supermarket and buy packets of plain M&Ms. I had a plan! If it failed, I would simply pour them into a bowl and eat them over the next week and into the new year. So I bought 6 packets, and sorted them out according to colour. Yes, the reds in one bag, the blues, oranges, greens, yellows and browns into another.

Here’s some trivia: there are twice as many brown M&Ms. than other colours in each pack. And the orange ones are the least. I gave each colour to 6 special friends, and kept half of the brown ones for myself. I didn’t get much in return, but it was wonderful to see the smile on their faces as they held onto their bags of single coloured M&Ms. .

School or no school, I think the warm, fuzzy feeling of Christmas is here. Or maybe it’s a sore throat from the chocolate and ice cream I’ve been shovelling into my mouth.

::Melissa Sim::
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