So this is Christmas and what have you done?

A quick click on my archives, and I find that there’s not much dif­fer­ence from last Christ­mas. Only this year, reservist is before Christ­mas, and my friend Ryan’s got a girl­friend now and he’s gone on leave so he won’t call me to tell me what a mis­er­able Christ­mas he’s hav­ing because the girl he likes doesn’t like him back that way.

I might have a guest over for Christ­mas Eve din­ner with my fam­ily, depend­ing on whether she’s patched up with her boyfriend or not. They always fight dur­ing this time of year. Then there are sev­eral Christ­mas and Box­ing Day din­ners to attend, and I might attend, depend­ing on the make-up of the guests invited. By that I mean the num­ber of mar­ried or attached guests. The cou­pled. At these din­ners, you often wit­ness the cou­pled being totally self-absorbed because it is after all the sea­son that engen­ders such things, or you wit­ness a big intra-couple blue brew­ing, and you just know that when they get home, they’re gonna be at each other’s throats because it is after all the sea­son that engen­ders such things.

Then there is the dan­ger of wit­ness­ing the non-coupled or recently uncou­pled devel­op­ing an immi­nent cou­pling. You know the sort. They go around the host’s house look­ing for the mistle­toe, think­ing no-one knows they’re doing that. (But Mr Miyagi, he see every­thing). I shud­der at the thought that one day I might be one of the sort.

Not much mid­dle ground there, and often too intense for my lik­ing. I just like to eat the turkey stuff­ing with some cran­berry sauce, can liao, and I can eat a whole can of that stuff. And I am thank­ful there will be food on my plate no mat­ter what.

Merry Christ­mas every­one. Here’s to the under­rated com­fort of hav­ing more of the same stuff every year.

Christ­mas 2002. The tree’s been shifted to the right of the pic­ture this year.