Bah Humbug - It's December again! 17 days to go!

Thursday 8th December.

Where did the last week go? Now I have to embark on the second week before Christmas.

Somehow, the phrase, "the second week before Christmas" does not quite have the ring of, "the night before Christmas". It does not have a ring at all. Other than the ring of cash registers.

So far, I have avoided the shops. I have ordered online - how did I manage without the internet?

But, sometimes, there is no choice.

Out into the tropical heat I ventured, shorts and t-shirt - always feels strange to me that I should be cold, but I am not. I suppose I could increase the intensity of the aircon when I get home. Not a bad idea, as Christmas shopping in Singapore, seems to start earlier and earlier. As a friend who was visiting from India remarked, "I wondered what planet I had wandered on to."

There were some items I needed and had not found anything suitable online. Last year I had buried the Christmas door wreath after the red berries died my hands red. I had visions of waking in the middle of the night, rubbing my hands and mumbling, "out, out, damned spot.". For weeks afterwards, I looked out of my window, wondering whether the rain-foresty jungle trees opposite, would start marching across the road.

Luckily, no such thing occurred, which is just as well.

And, so, I found myself in an expensive expat shopping mall, staring at the florist's shop. I avoided eye gaze with the staff, I did not want to engage in conversation. My Scroogeness was in vast supply.

I espied one, simple, just twigs, leaves and red berries. No glitter, no cones, no anything else. In fact, it was so red, that it was more luminescent than old Rudolph's nose. That'll shock the neighbours.

Rather chuffed with my over-priced purchase, I meandered through the rest of the mall. Little artisanal and creative stores had set themselves up, or rather been set up by budding entrepreneurs, all vying to make a killing over the Christmas period.

Ah, ha, thought I, some new Christmas lights, and little lights, just like those tiny Ikea jobbies that I bought for my Alt-tree. Before I could prevent myself, my hand reached for a box. Nonchalantly turning it over in my hand, I nearly choked. $84.

How can you charge $84 for a few wires and some LED lights? How can you charge that when Ikea only charged me $14.90? I had to then ponder if Ikea was using the illegal method of child labour, which I somehow doubted, they are Swedish after all. Then it struck me - I was in a glitzy over-priced expat shopping mall. Of course, lights would cost $84 or even $95 and some of them even more. My eyes watered. I coughed a little, picked up another box, pretended to weigh one against the other and then shook my head.


Face saved, I decided the best option was to slink away and be thankful I had Bah flipping Humbug, gone to the home of flatpack earlier.

Bah Humbug - It's December again! 20 days to go!

Monday, 5th December - Austerity Star Date - Go to Ikea for some Scandinavian therapy.

If the truth be known, I was beginning to find myself feeling a little nostalgic for those Christmases when the house was filled with decorations and lights, and the fat feathered fairy that sat on top of the tiny fake tree that my mother liked to place on the table in the hallway. My face used to flush tomato-red when I caught sight of her bare butt. The feathers were not very efficient at covering her modesty.

On the spur of the moment, I filled a water bottle, picked up my car keys and took my life in my hands - I was going to that winter wonderland of flat-packed furniture, Ikea.

I was not sure quite what for, though. Gosh, maybe I was becoming engulfed by the consumerism that I was so desperately attempting to humbug?

After speeding through the meandering walkways of the store, which is obviously trying to make you buy more, by packing more into a smaller space. I whirl-winded along the woodland paths that entice unsuspecting customers to the gingerbread house. I found some solar energy lights - that'll save the planet, and a set of tree lights that was one-sixth the price of lights I had seen in Tanglin Mall. More about The Great Christmas Fairy Light Rip Off in a future blog ...

Then I found what I was looking for - white willow sticks. Perfect for my pagan tree corner. Now all I needed were some tiny lights, and some Nordic Christmas baubles, and I would have an alternative tree - the Alt-Christmas Tree - with no needle shredding. I had the have an alternative tree, after all, this is a Christmas of trends, started with my austerity tree.

Tiny, almost inconspicuously wired, battery operated fairy lights were the answer, which proved their novelty by turning themselves off after a certain length of time. I reckon they gave up when no one was watching. Well, at least that saves on the battery purchase.



With my purchases in hand, or in a couple of large reusable bags, I headed home to establish my Alt-Christmas corner, feeling rather Bah flipping Humbugly pleased with myself.

Bah Humbug - It's December again! 23 days to go!

Stupid robotic lights

The tree was delivered in a thunderstorm. I wonder if that has some ominous Odin-like portent?

Ah, well, if it does, then we'll either get hammered this Christmas, or it will be a Loki affair - (oh my goodness, what puns and for this time of the morning!).

Instead of filling the house with the arresting aroma (not the alliteration there - just for my students), a dank rankness of rotting wood (oh such onomatopoeia and I can still feel the dampness in my nostrils), wafted through the house. 

"What's that dead wood smell, Mum?"

Sigh, this was not what I was hoping for. I wanted to conjure up a scent from my childhood, and not one that was normally found in an overfilled nappy.

I couldn't put on the aircon to dry out the room, as the drainage pipe, embedded in a concrete wall had decided to leak last Friday.  I shall be buying the aircon a new drainage pipe for Christmas. I've never bought an object a Christmas present, but I suppose the world is becoming a funny place, and very soon, we'll be buying our own personalised robots gifts to keep them happy.

So, does that mean that there will be a robot Santa Claus? And do dead robots go to Calculator Heaven? Too much Red Dwarf.

What has all this got to do with lights?

My perennial hate, fairy lights - why on earth are they called fairy lights? There are no fairies in sight - unless you count the froufrou fairy who only wore feathers, and sat on top of the small fake tree my mother used as a hall table tree when I was growing up. No one liked her; she was just too froufrou.

The lights, well the icicle lights have let me down, as I mentioned.

The two reindeer are so disgusted, that whichever way you look at them, they are showing you their butts!

Back to the lights and the apparently tenuous robotic link, which in fact, is not that tenuous. Chasing Christmas lights, are programmed, controlled with a little box. Rather like a robot. 

Robotic lights on the Christmas tree, so it won't be long before we have talking decorations.

In true Christmas tree light fashion, and as a reminder that even robots will have to retire to calculator heaven one day, I cannot control the lights. There are eight options, none of which work, apart from one, mega flashy freaky light mode. That is on one set. 

The second set twinkles. OK, I can just about handle twinkling. 

The third set, yes a third set - it is a large (well relatively) tree - fades in and out. Gosh, that one is almost as mind-jarring as the first.

And then, there is the final set. The set I recently purchased from Ikea. Stupid time to shop in Ikea, Sunday afternoon. That is when half of Singapore goes to window shop as there is nothing better to do. Exit a grumpy ang moh lady from Ikea over an hour later. The final set doesn't do anything. It just doesn't match.

And, as if to make matters worse, I need to remember to turn all the lights off when I go out (they are on a timer), just in case they short and set fire to the tree.

I now have nightmares of Victorian Christmas trees, adorned with candles suddenly bursting into flames.

Maybe my son was had a point when he asked for no Christmas tree this year ...

Bah Humbug. It's December again - only a week to go!!

Bah Humbug, it's 18th December .

Only a week left - that isn't even 7 days because everyone has a half day on Christmas Eve.

I need to order the turkey - Oh no! I haven't done that yet.

Nothing for it, I have to forego writing today and get out into the melee of Christmas shoppers.

I suppose there is only so much you can do on line, and as I proved last week, that is not very much.

Today I leave you with a cat in a bag - certainly not let out yet. Although he does have this tendency to venture next door and play with the dog. I think he has an identity crisis going on.

Nevertheless, he appears to be one member of my household who knows what he wants for Christmas.


This is the cat the likes to play with water and stick his head under the tap. I think he is hoping that I have purchased a nicely cat-scented gift for him to use in the shower.

I haven't the heart to tell him that The Body Shop is for humans, not cats, but the red bag makes a great adventure toy and it makes him think that it is Christmas every day. Rather like fresh chicken for dinner.

The Christmas tree spat out some more gifts this evening, a fair number of which I hope will be a pleasant surprise.

Yet another reason to keep the cat in the bag, rather than out of the bag. Surprise Christmas gifts.

Good job I bought some more wrapping paper there might be a lot of bag-less cats running around

He's even put his white socks on.

BAH HUMBUG

My goodness Ikea looked like it had been eaten by locusts.