A lot of Christmas is about tradition:

– over catering so Christmas can be remembered through leftovers for at least one week (though the 5.5kg turkey I had a couple of years ago exceeded this and with careful planning, could have lasted until I had a Christmas in July celebration. Now that’s a tradition I’m missing though it is a little pointless here since December is winter though it wasn’t very cold. I digress…) 

– getting together with family / friends (or phone calls, message exchanges or some other form of communication)

– gift exchanges or similar

– Christmas crackers with paper hats, a novelty toy that will break before the meal is over and some very lame jokes

– Christmas carols

– Die Hard or another Christmas movie (here’s some other suggestions if you don’t know what to watch this festive season and you’d like something a little different)

For me, I have a few of my own traditions:

– a Christmas hat

– a new pair of pyjamas

– two Christmas ornaments – one crystal

I have adapted it this year as I’m in transit with some things in storage so have decided I don’t need to add to my ornaments and have bought a Hello Kitty holding a Christmas present. This seemed appropriate given my return from Japan. I also haven’t bought a new pair of pjs as I have enough. 

The Christmas hat has changed over the years. I’ve moved on from red since I don’t think I should be stealing Santa’s uniform and have been wearing a gold one for the past few years instead. It’s in storage though so I’m trialing pink.

I like it.

Christmas lunch wasn’t over-catered as I dined with some friends at  Jimmy’s Kitchen. They provided a set lunch where we could choose seafood, turkey or lamb (or at least, I think it was lamb. I didn’t pay too much attention as for me, Christmas is turkey), followed by dessert which was Christmas pudding or pavlova. I’ll admit to being torn with this one. I chose the Christmas pudding partly because it’s Christmas and partly because if I had it at any other time of the year, it wouldn’t be Christmas pudding. I can make pavlova anytime. 

This year I have been thinking about mulled wine. It’s interesting how a Christmas beverage smells like an Easter Hot Cross Bun. Is this an accident? Yes, I know it’s the spices though with over 350 to choose from (not including combinations), there were other options. Now which was made first? I’m sidetracked again; further research is required…

The Christmas crackers did have paper hats, my novelty gift was a keyring yoyo (where was that when I was younger and couldn’t get the yoyo to stop unrolling in my school bag? Such a clever attachment as it clips the string in place while holding your keys). It was of the usual high quality plastic, in green and perfectly complemented the joke. 

I have none of these in my possession now.

Catching up with these friends was fantastic especially since I hadn’t seen them since being back and some were people that had left HK before I did and had recently returned. The gift of time is not to be squandered and the transient nature of HK reminds me of this. Some of these people were among the first I met when I moved to HK originally. All our dogs played together and a few of us have had our fur kids leave us this year too so it added another element to our catch up.

My family, I have been on the phone with a few of them over the course of the day, exchanged messages with others, have had various WhatsApp and Facebook chats with friends and am feeling very well connected right about now. This also explains the delay in my posting this tonight as I enjoy the catch ups! 

Now for the movie. I’ve seen Die Hard (all of them) quite a few times over the years so I’m now going to watch a movie others tend to see at Christmas that I have somehow missed. I think I’ve missed it because Hugh Grant and I aren’t a match made in heaven. He seems to play the same character in every movie so I have had a tendency to get bored. That and I think he’s trying to hypnotise me with his fringe flicking. If he just cut it, he wouldn’t need to put all that strain on his neck trying to keep his fringe out of his eyes. 

I’m going to try again since so many people rate this as one, if not their favourite, Christmas movie.

Love Actually…

* Thanks to Billy Mack for the title to this post. For those that want to relive the music video. Bill Nighy is a funny guy.

For the Love Actually Fans

23 Secrets You Might Not Know About Love Actually – I’m not peaking until after I’ve watched the movie

Last Christmas We Found Out What Happened to Harry and Karen – I have no idea who these people are yet so I’m not that interested in what happened to them right now. Can’t believe this was news from two days ago though so it’s almost hot off the press!

For the Die Hard Fans

Things You Never Knew About the Bruce Willis Movie – this was published today so they must have kept this secret for quite some time now!