Bah-Humbug... Or Not

      Christmas and I have a complicated relationship. It begins with the fact that, until I was 17, I had never spent a Christmas at home. Not once. Sure, this meant I spent the holiday in the Florida Keys or, as my grandparents aged, in the Florida panhandle. Tough life, right? Well, it had its moments. For reasons far more complicated than this post can cover, I have always fantasized about just not having Christmas. No travel, no expectation, no obligation, no consumerism, no dashed-hopes, no familial tension, no sad memories of people no longer present, no acknowledgement that December 25th is any different from the other 364 days of the year. I fancifully thought that Thailand would offer such a yuletide retreat...
       You can imagine my horror when on November 1st the largest, ritziest mall at Siam Center (the holy ground of Bangkok consumerist worship) erected their 4-story, oversized-ornament be-decked Christmas tree. Wait, WHAT?! I am in a buddhist country for goodness sake! I mourned a bit on that day. Then, I put on my grinch cap. The city was then slowly consumed by Christmas ridiculousness; LED lights were strung haphazardly over the entire lanscape, poinsettias placed in every office, karaoke carols blared from every speaker and greetings of ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’ sung at the cash registers of more retail establishments than I care to recall. Any hope of a skipped holiday was pummeled over and over and over again. I got myself into a stink about it, considered a full scale Christmas revolt then did the ever-so-sensible thing of posting about my ‘bah-humbug’ attitude on Facebook. Not 5 minutes later the Pubic Relations coordinator of Mercer posted a video about a soon-to-be Mercer graduate who is living with Cerebral Palsy, has a fabulous attitude about life, and left me in a pile of teary toilet paper. Shame on me, I thought. 
     So, I just let go. I realized I was working myself into a tizzy about a holiday I really wanted to be indifferent about and that, consequently, I was defeating my own intentions. Lo and behold when Christmas morning rolled around I woke up and it was just like any other Saturday. No tree had magically appeared on my balcony, no one was outside my door caroling, no miracle snow dotted the cityscape. But, truth be told, there was something deep down inside me that missed the typical Christmas I had so longed to escape. I missed the sight of a fresh Christmas tree, bedecked with Brasstown carvings. I missed the smell of the pine incense that my mother burns in holders shaped like log cabins. I missed the aroma of spiced peach salad, smoked oyster stuffing, and dutch almond cookies. I yearned for a chunk of pickled herring and a toast of Asti champagne. I missed my quilted, hand-made stocking... the single continuity (besides my parents over-abundance of love) in my Christmas memories. I missed my father’s clever gift giving and my mothers handwriting on the To/From: cards. I missed all the little things that made a Doornbos Family Christmas just that. 
    So, like any good dutch girl, I lounged in the apartment, quickly got bored, watched clips of “A White Christmas”, tidied up my things and scrubbed my tile floors to Calvinist clean perfection. That night, I sat at my favorite Pad Thai street vendor and had a heaping portion. She didn’t know it was Christmas but still managed to put out a plate of utter deliciousness. And despite a twinge of longing, I was completely satisfied with my 2010 Christmas dinner. It was perfect for me right then.
    I capped off  my night by watching an extra spectacular drag show and dancing until the wee hours of the next morning at DJ Station. Clubbing on Christmas? Only in Bangkok. Bah-humbug be banished.