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! 21 days to go!

Oh goodness, it's Sunday. I have the tedious task of adorning the tree with trinkets and baubles.

"Ah, but ..." the sneaky little Bah Humbug fairy whispers in my ear, "it's an austerity tree, isn't it?"

"What's that got to do with whether it snows or not this year?" I think I must have been having a conversation with myself.

"Well, it's hardly going to snow in Singapore, now, is it?" chided the Bah Humbug winged thing.

"It might do, if you go to look at the lights at Tanglin Mall." I suggested to myself. Then, I remembered, quite proudly, that in all the years I have lived in Singapore, I have never bothered to venture under the Christmas decorations at Tanglin Mall, with the hope of being soaked in sticky, foamy bubbles.

And now my boys are too old to want to associate themselves with anything like that.

Goodness me, what have I raised?

"Back to the point at hand," grumbled the Bah Humbug bug. Definitely a bug, only a bug would keep reminding me to rummage around in the bomb shelter, hope I didn't discover a dead cockroad, and carry up boxes of Christmas decorations that had amassed over the years.

"Now that's a point for austerity," I ventured.

The bug shook its head, "no one will buy second hand Christmas ornaments - don't kid yourself."

I resigned myself to selecting decorations that were befitting a short, austerity tree.


I think I managed to pull off a fairly decent feat of decorating - using up almost as many trinkets on the tree as a normal year.

Well, OK, not a normal year.

But a year when I have had a taller and wider tree (probably been eating too many mince pies).



So, Miss Nit-picky Bah Humbug Fairy, you can go and Bah-flipping-Humbug off.