Christmas doesn’t come to Hong Kong until late November / early December and I like it this way. This is generally my favourite time of the year and I love getting into the Christmas spirit. This year has been different.
I don’t see any Christmas decorations, foods, advertising until well after Halloween has been celebrated at the end of October. This part is usual.
The downside of this is that even though it is now early December and the buildings are decorated, lights are even down the side of some in Central, I don’t feel particularly festive.
In Australia, I have months to build up to Christmas as decorations seem to go up earlier each year. In contrast, here seems to be quite late which gives December a clear focus of it’s own – Christmas.
I like it like this because all the Christmas cheer is concentrated. Parties are in a short time span and the time goes past in a whirl of funny presents (Secret Santa), good cheer, food and alcohol. It’s silly season condensed and intensified.
This shouldn’t really be that surprising for Hong Kong. Having a condensed silly season for the gweilos means the rest of the time, we’re working! No chance to slacken off from October to early January, there’s only about two weeks where it is realistically possible without raising too many eyebrows. This is also because most people take summer holidays (June / July generally) rather than Christmas holidays, so the ‘down time’ tends to be halfway through the year rather than at the end of it.
The downside for me this year though is that my work is still ridiculously busy which has meant that I don’t feel festive at all yet.
Decorations have started to go up in my office and I’m going to decorate my team’s area tomorrow which should help me feel festive. I also have to buy a couple of secret Santa gifts too given I have my first Christmas party next week, followed by a dinner on the Friday and then the triathlon Christmas party on the Saturday. Sunday will definitely be a sleep in.
The following Friday is my work function for an early month end drinks. We’ve invited family along which should add to the entertainment and we’ve organised activities for the children and drinks for the adults. Santa will also make an appearance to hand out the gifts.
We need to decorate our house here too so this will need to be no later than Wednesday otherwise it won’t be done until Sunday.
I don’t think I can wait that long to get festive.
* Thanks to Frank Sinatra for the title to this post.