It's hard to plan ahead when one isn't surrounded by the holiday spirit as one is back in the U.S.A. For instance, I just purchased Christmas cards today. Why so late? Well, because I had no idea that Christmas had snuck up on me and was only 2 weeks away. AND to top it all off, they need to be sent like, yesterday in order to get to the U.S. in time and not to be New Years cards...or Valentines Day cards for that matter. I guess I'll draw hearts on them just in case. It can't hurt to be cautious.
The grips of holiday consumerism is only just starting to seep in and poke it's very expensive head around the corner here. Although I did find myself mindlessly fingering trinkets and holding clothes I'd "never in a million years" dream of even putting on my body in Central Festival, the local mall, today. I must have wasted 2 hours of my day just meandering around aimlessly looking for something to, um, look at. I had an interest in uninteresting things and glanced at price tags as if I was pondering if I could buy the item. And all this in a person who, for the most part (unless I have a pocket full of cash), is an in and out shopper.
I now realize that the 2 hours of floating around was just sacrifice for that nostalgic feeling of home and the holiday spirit. Christmas tunes like Jingle Bell Rock, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas were quietly playing under the non-suspecting ears of shoppers just trying to avoid the heat. I was snapping my fingers to the beat of Frosty the Snowman through a bra sale and moping to Blue Christmas in the shoe department. Myself, I originally went in to fix my Ipod. A true mission. But was taken in by the woeful melodies of seasonal favourites. Christmas trees and their accompanying accoutrement dangled, twinkling. Garlands and Santa hats were suffocating turtlenecked mannequins with snowflake embroidered scarves.
And it was as if I was in any mall.
Anywhere.
Possibly even home.
Time really does move quickly here. That could be why I blinked, and it's Christmas. Maybe because there is so much to do and one isn't holed up from the cold, layered under blankets and gripping a mug of soup. The sun is shining when one wakes up and the beach is always beckoning. There are no significant seasons like winter and its opposite, summer. It's just... nice, maybe raining sometimes, but even that isn't significant enough to base a time period around for the most part, although we do refer to it as the wet season, or the newly appointed p.c. name of "the green season".
I do miss big, fat chunks of snow landing on my nose and coating my eyelashes as I walk. I miss sticking my tongue out and twirling, instant snowball fights among strangers, coming inside and shaking a cloud of snow onto the floor, hot cocoa like my Aunt Kay use to make on the gas stove with the iron kettle, going sliding with friends and pulling donuts in empty parking lots. I don't miss being cold though, I HATE being cold.
Sand angels just aren't the same, and quite honestly, get a little uncomfortable after a while. Mudball fights are fun, but lack the impact of a hardened and well-sculpted ball of snow. Mudmen crumble and torrential rain can land on your nose and eyelashes, but you might as well be swimming.
So I bought my Buddhist inspired Christmas cards, down in the basement of the mall, tucked away in some back corner after realizing that I had been in the mall for 2 hours. Maybe I missed that holiday shopping feeling: that giddy, cartwheeling-stomach feeling of knowing you're getting something great for someone else. The smiles and cheerful mood that people seem to be in (before the mad rush to finish shopping). Hopeful children. Knowing that you will be surrounded by family and friends. But, that last feeling vanished as I exited the swinging doors of the mall, the short, uniformed security guard saluting me as he is required to do. The heat hit me and I was back in Phuket. Another Christmas abroad.
Then I got to thinking about last year: Erik and I sitting on the beach, two recliners under a colourful umbrella, swimsuits and Santa hats. We had a picnic on the beach. No, a FEAST on the beach. We ate chicken with our fingers and washed them off in the salty sea. We drank champagne and opened presents while the sun shone down on us and the waves crashed against the white sand. The white sand... we did have a white Christmas after all. And a memory so unmistakably special, it will be forever etched in our minds.
Will Christmas come and go, insignificantly in my daily life because I'm not reminded of it as I would be in America? I don't have a television, so Charlie Brown's Christmas Special won't be playing. There's no need to put on boats and snow pants (nor a long-sleeved shirt for that matter). The only thing resembling Christmas lights on houses are the "girly bars (prostitution bars)" with their flickering bulbs, but that's everyday, every night. Perhaps I'll revisit the mall. If only for a short time, just to catch a tune, to hear a classic representation of that holiest of holiday seasons. Who knows, I may even see a Thai Santa.
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