The Bangsar Boy talks Christmas

Yesterday, was press shutdown at The Star (and other major papers in the country). This basically means that no one in the office – well, short of some journalists who have to cover the news events of the day – are working. The other newspaper folks – from journalists to artists, photographers to production technicians, who otherwise be working through public holidays to get the pages to print for your reading pleasure – all get the day off.

This only happens four times in a year – Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali and Christmas.

It is because of this that you do not get to read newspapers today (well, for those of you still reading the papers lah). And it is also because of this that my The Bangsar Boy column, slated in for today’s StarMetro is, well, non-existent.

So I thought I’d write something here – in the style I usually write my column – to make up for it.

Christmas in my family has always been part of tradition. Ever since I was a kid, mum and dad had always put up the Christmas tree in the first week of December. The kids – my eldest sister tai che, second sister ee che and myself – would help out wherever we could.

As we grew older, we often took over the responsibility. Part of it was excitement, no doubt, but the other part was also to do our share to help. I suppose it was also that as we grew, mum and dad trusted us to decorate it ourselves. I recall many a-number of the round glass ornaments breaking when I was younger.

The thing is, my family members are not Christians. We have an altar at home for Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy and we go to the temple every Wesak Day (and sometimes on our birthdays). That said, I am not particularly religious, though I fill in “Agama Buddha” in official forms (where necessary – I leave them blank whenever I can).

So Christmas for us was definitely a secular celebration, which fits right with our country’s muhibbah concept anyway. Don’t we all partake in various culture and religion’s celebrations anyway?

For example, my non-Chinese brother-in-law would give me an ang pow during Chinese New Year although it is a cultural celebration. Similarly, I would help my Muslim sister host her Hari Raya do sometimes, even though the celebration marks the end of Ramadhan, a religious event. One year at the office, we made a kolam for Deepavali although Sharmila was the only Indian celebrating the festival of lights among the eight of us in the R.AGE team.

Christmas is exactly that. I’m not sure how the tradition started in my family but I suspect it was a great way for our parents to lavish us with gifts at a time when they were not so well off, and could only afford to buy presents every now and then.

In my house, it was also a time for family to come together. When my sisters were younger and lived at our home with my parents, we enjoyed the company of our Uncle Doug and Aunty Joyce on Christmas Eve. There are years where we’d go out for dinner, but other times we’d all just gather at home and have a merry meal. Following the meal is of course the presents opening session.

Over the years howerever, Uncle Doug got married and so he celebrates with his family in their own way. Aunty Joyce spends most of her Christmas these days in church. But until yesterday – and I believe for many more years – at the Cheong’s household in Bangsar, it still serves as a reunion of sorts. Now that my sisters and their respective families live on their own, they too come back to celebrate Christmas (like how they always come back on the even of Chinese New Year).

It is also a joy to see the look on the kids faces as their wait for the present opening session after dinner. Adam, my nephew, runs around the house trying to get at least one of us adults to announce that it’s presents time. At age eight, he might be young and think that Christmas is all about the presents.

I did too. But as I grew up, I also learned that there is a reason why it is not only known as the time for sharing and giving. It is also associated with joy, love and happiness. These are all universal values, and are among the most important that we spread to the world.

Merry Christmas all, Christians and non-Christians alike.

5.52pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

Tags: celebrations, chinese new year, christmas, deepavali, hari raya, Niki Cheong, religion, StarMetro, The Bangsar Boy, The Star