WHENEVER I confess that for the third year running, my mother’s Christmas gift to me remains dissembled and stuffed in a barrel in a storeroom, I normally draw strange looks and comments. It’s not that I don’t like Christmas; just that I don’t need a tree, especially an artificial one, decorations, or the usual trappings to enjoy the season.
Like, for example, relaxing the other night with a magazine, I heard loud thuds coming from next door. Stepping out onto my verandah, I saw my neighbour hard at work nailing decorations around her verandah, even though it was almost midnight. She gave me an apologetic look, and I reciprocated with a friendly wave and went back indoors. I like my sheer blue-and-white curtains and my walls, which are bare, except for calendars and functional holders.

At another time, someone else in the neighbourhood called me over, enthusiastically showing me some floral arrangements they were selling. I wonder what frame of mind I would have to be in to add plastic flowers to the sizeable collection of books and clothes which crowd my abode.
I admit I do like some things about Christmas — the metallics and green and red colours; the late opening hours of stores; the charitableness of individuals and organizations; the increased variety of certain foods in the supermarkets; the parties; and giving and receiving gifts.
The things I hate are the badly done versions of carols; the cheap plastic decorations; skinny Santas; increased traffic; and long lines at banks, markets and stores, to name a few.
I am probably sounding like old Ebenezer, and, quite frankly, I have no problem with anyone who wants to throw out all their curtains, paint their whole house, deck their abodes with a ton of decorations, or start their Christmas cooking on Christmas Eve Day; but don’t expect me to get on board that Christmas boat.
As part of efforts to be more social, I have decided to accept an invitation, and will be linking up to have a traditional Christmas this year. I will play along and eat pepperpot and black cake; I will even be making some.
I will have a great time, as I wish everyone reading this to have. But, at the same time, I wonder if it would be so off-the-wall for me to just relax and have a regular beer (not ginger beer) with a nice Quesadilla (a sort of cheesy tortilla) and watch a season of my favourite sitcom in bed.