drop the 'x' for Christ aye?
I've never really been absolutely sure what the "X" in Xmas represented. Is it because an "X" is also a cross.. and... a cross is what Jesus died on...? Is it because a common word preceeding cross is "criss" and thus it's sorta like a phonetic Crissmas? Whatever it is, it's odd and on a slightly tangential note, Futurama's Xmas (pronounced "Ex mas") episodes always made me happy.
9. Gifts
Receiving gifts is awesome and so is getting a gift for someone and seeing his/her face light up upon opening the present. However, I really believe that the idea and joy of getting a present lies behind the thought that went into choosing the gift. Thus, it's kinda purpose-defeating when people (My sistas, for example) tell you exactly what they want, and ask you exactly what you want. We might as well just minus off the difference in cash value and pass the cash to one another. Office gift exchanges too, are a pain in the ass and serve absolutely no purpose in anyone's lives. On the flip side, this is precisely why I always look forward to the annual gift exchange with the Clover Cup folks (Ben, Gayby, Wille) - it is ALWAYS a joy.
8. November
I find it bloody ridiculous that decorations and carols start appearing by the first week of November.
7. Chinese New Year (songs)
By default, the minute Christmas is over and the decorations and music CDs are removed, the bloody annoying Chinese New Year songs start blaring over every conceivable audio channel. It's like there's a team on standby to ensure that there's as little lag time as possible. Just thinking about that makes me dread this period even more.
orchard road goes lights-crazy
How did Christmas become so secular? With all the bright lights, happy songs, presents, sales, offers, mistletoe... Christmas is about the birth of Christ and in my opinion, is too damned commercialised and celebrated. I don't remember Christmas in Rome being anything like what it is in Singapore (or maybe I just wasn't invited to the best parties). I wonder if say, Vesak day was on the 25th of December and Christmas fell on some odd Tuesday of May, would we all be madly getting Vesak gifts for one another now.
5. Easter
Poor Easter. I actually feel that Easter is more significant than Christmas (Born for us vs. Died for us etc). However, Easter always slips by without the parties and champagne popping and giant turkeys and logcakes. Easter is kinda like the less popular, uglier, introverted sibling that sits in a corner. Well, this ties in with the point above on the secularism of Christmas and if Easter became all secular-ly popular and happening, I'd bitch about it as well...
4. Humans
The town areas, CBD area, heck, any built up area in Singapore are already extremely crowded on any given weekend. Then comes Christmas and the mad pulsating shopping crowd gorges on the Yuletide growth hormones sent down from the heavens and grows even larger and more massive, destroying anything in its way.
3. Rain
Growing up watching TV shows and movies, Christmas was always a nice white snowy one with fireplaces, scarves and hot cocoa. FALSE. Christmas in Singapore means rain. Rain at the most inconvenient of times - before you step out for work, before you step out for lunch, on your way back home from work. Times in between are filled with lovely sunlight and gentle breezes though.
2. Remixed Christmas carols
Remixed Christmas carols are the worst. The annual Mariah Carey Christmas carol... the Gospel style Christmas carol... the popped up and hyped up Joy to the World... they make me wish Christmas were over immediately, until of course, I think of the awful Chinese New Year songs that will follow.
1. Christmas themed advertising jingles
The thing I detest the MOST about Christmas are the damned jingles I hear on radio. These reallly encapsulate the sense of apprehension I feel for this holiday with the disgusting manipulation, anal raping, bastardisation and decapitation of some of these really lovely songs. And somehow they ALWAYS start with "On the 12th day of Christmas...." and they ALWAYS involve a really fast-paced, annoying high-pitched nasal male voice. The writers of this song really should have thought it through carefully when they came up with the structure of this song.
While this concludes my list of why Christmas is rather annoying, there are probably a million other annoying things about Christmas. That said, Christmas was always special to me as a child (even though I had to attend mass) and hopefully, one day it will be special again.
article by our resident columnist, marvo ging
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