Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Fake Plastic Tree

Shane, we’re having a Christmas tree this year! Something you did last Christmas melted all my resolve against those fake plastic trees.

The first hint that Christmas had hit you hard was when you started to sing jingle bells. Your secular nursery taught you that song and you sang “jingle bells,jingle bells” whenever you saw a string of lights. Never mind if that string of lights was actually the large neon crabclaw outside the zhi char coffeeshop or the numerous KTV signs which dot Joo Chiat.

As Christmas rolled by, we cobbled a present for you - a cheapo China made radio controlled excavator which would greet you on Christmas morning. For a laugh, we got you a midget sized Christmas tree from the $2 shop which was as tall as the entire length of your palm. It had tiny red bows, and golden glitter. You carried the tiny tree everywhere and you fell asleep to it clutching it like a precious teddy bear.

That image of you clutching that tiny $2 tree and your eyes gleaming with that crazed christmas look, has haunted me to this day.

Right now, my BIG question is the Christmas tree we’re going to get. This is a big deal for me. In all my adult life, I have never decorated, dismantled or stored a Christmas tree! I can’t believe we’re going to expend money and electricity on something which does nothing except bring us an intangible feel-good. Do you know how CAMP this feels?

To some, big questions are “What am I going to do with my life, what will I do about my career and what is the next mountain to conquer?” Now, these are very (boring) important questions that you will have to contemplate later in your life.

For right now, I’m sure you agree that what really matters is - Pimping our Living Room for Christmas!!!

5 ft? 6 ft? Candy canes? Nutcracker theme? Where will we hang the socks?

Friday, September 01, 2006

2 years

Dear Pa

You who always distressed that I had bad tv connection, will be pleased to know that I just got cable connected.

In my bedroom, I’ve kept the footstool from your leather Eames chair. The leather is cracked and it must be as old as myself. I rest my feet on it when I watch TV. The TV is also yours - The 40 inch Sony projector. You loved watching TV. It was your favourite form of relaxation. At night, when I curl on the chair with my feet up, the comforting boom of the TV brings back my earliest memories of you - as a child piling into your bed,waiting for the Love Boat and making a tent under your blanket. Bringing in the newspaper in the morning and sharing the different sections. How you'd get annoyed when I hijacked my favourite parts of the paper.

The one thing I never got to tell you was whether it was a girl or boy. You had a grandaughter, pa. Her name is Alix and the sunshine she now brings in my life, I trace to you - the most important value you imparted quite apart from the education and upbringing was the warmth and joy of family love. In one big family bed, TV and newspapers, you're still with us.