In Continuum.

Sad Christmas

Silent night, broken night
All is fallen when you take your flight
I found some hate for you
Just for show
You found some love for me
Thinking I'd go
Don't keep me from crying to sleep
Sleep in heavenly peace

There's something about the Christmas season that i dislike.Sure,you see happy shoppers on Orchard Road bearing down the sidewalk with their arms barely enough for the handles and straps of the shopping bags they are carrying.You see an employee of a shopping mall dressed up as Santa Claus,throwing candies into hordes of children in the middle of a conscourse,hiding their anguish and hate for the job behind the fake white beard.You hear those repetitive Christmas songs being played everywhere on speakers,hearing the jingle of the bells and the reindeer songs,with the sun hanging up in the sky,buring a hole into the back of your top.Yeah,that's the typical Christmas in Singapore,and the problem with it for me is this: People are too happy.

Okay,this is just the pessimistic bastard inside of me speaking,but i guess we've never really embraced Christmas from a different perspective.Let's admit it,as much as Christmas is about shopping and sales,it is the season where materialism is king.Everybody turns into this materialistic,discount hungry maniac at shopping malls,running their fingers through piles of discounted clothes and then nudging the 'cpmpetitors' aside just so that he or she gets squeezed out of the fellow crowd of shopping maniacs.I think Christmas is ugly now,in our age where the true spirit of Christmas is forgotten.Especially with the rain unleashing its power over the city these days instead of cold fluffy snow,Singaporean-type Christmas is especially hideous.

Of course,there are the small minority of people trying to put the Christmas back into people's books.They are usually the evangelists from churches,especially the richer ones,trying to save the world every Christmas by asking more people to go to their churches.I was asked this year,like any other year of course.But due to my agnostic beliefs,i declined their offers.But anyway,as much as i am agnostic,i do appreciate those Christians' efforts to be happy and jolly this holiday season,to try to divert people's attentions away from the materialistic needs.

While i took a taxi home from an unknown hotel on Monday night after my trip from Malaysia,it was pouring cats and dogs outside of the taxi window.Like i mentioned before,i dont remember such a downpour in recent days,and that night just so happened to be the night before the heaviest rain to fall in Singapore in the past 75 years.But anyway,so there i was turning into the road that leads to the entrance of my estate when i saw a whole bunch of those fancy cars you see during Chingay,with nice Christmas lights decorated and plastic statues of Mary Magdelene,a whole bunch of sheeps and fake Christmas trees.A bunch of people were standing around the cars,and there were about five or six of those,lined up one after another with a whole bunch of traffic police at the front of them.The people were dressed in white angelic robes,even the men.They were waving at the passing cars and the passengers inside,apparently trying to spread the Christmas spirit amongst the Christians and the non-Christians.They were members from a church as i later found out,but what was hilarious to me was the fact that they were pretending to be happy and jolly,in the rain with their angelic robes drenched from head to toe.As much as i appreciated their efforts,they shouldve had a wet weather program i thought.Because obviously nobody gave a shit about their Tour de Singapura.

I'd like to see a Christmas one year when everybody thinks back at all the tragedies that happened in the past year and lament over them.I'd dearly like to see that,and i say stop all the shopping and all the sales.We can always do that after the new year.I'd like to see a genuinely sad Christmas one year,with no golden Christmas lights or happy smiling Santa Claus.The reindeers will be sad,pissed off for pulling the sledge for so many years,and there wont be toys for the children.Okay,i sounded like Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas,or the Grinch from How The Grinch Stole Christmas.But what the hell,i can see their intentions now.Christmas is just too happy,for some reason.

Like any other special occasions,be it Birthdays or New Years,i seem to have been cultivated to be slightly dissatisfied,mildly unhappy about them.I cannot care less for each of those days,even my own birthday.I think it is because my family never really bothered to celebrate those days for me or with me,and over the years i have learned to not care about that sad fact.I've learned that i shouldnt take my birthday for granted,that presents are presents.They dont need a day to be presented.You can argue that i actually got Josephine for Christmas two years ago,but that was more like a since-you-are-going-to-NS-let's-buy-you-a-guitar-and-call-it-a-christmas-present thing.The truth still remains as it is,my family doesnt celebrate any special occasions,sad but true.

So i wonder how this year's Christmas is going to be like,with my parents leaving for Taiwan on Christmas day while i will be home alone,or watching my beau's caroling at some hotel in town.But this is the first Christmas after my attachment,my first attachment.I wonder how it is going to be different from all the other Christmas.Sure,i stand by the fact that i still await the day of a sad Christmas with vulgarity spurting Santa and killer dwarves.But amidst those,i still wish to treasure the warmth,the fuzzy feeling of being close to somebody.Yeah,i'd like that.

Silent night, moonlit night
Nothing's changed
Nothing is right
I should be stronger than weeping alone
You should be weaker than sending me home
I can't stop you fighting to sleep
Sleep in heavenly peace