Christmas and other ghosts

It's the same story every year. As Christmas swings slowly by, I begin to get into the mood by blaring out carols on every available music player. Throughout Advent, the excitement and anticipation builds up, thanks in no small part to the frenzy of shopping, music and parties.

But then, as the day itself dawns ever nearer, the delightful mania loosens its grip and is replaced by what can best be described as a hazy sense of melancholy.

Christmas can be the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times because that is often when all that's good about a person's character comes to the fore. When peace and goodwill become more than mere words. When giving is indeed better than getting. When we truly take pleasure in other people's joy.

Come Yuletide, my mind always trudges back to the Christmases of my childhood and my early youth. Half remembered images from when I was a toddler - like the trip to Sungai Wang in 1985, where i took a polaroid with Santa on his sleigh.

Crystal clear memories of the preparations we would undergo when grandpa was still alive. The records that would be playing. Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Ray Conniff, and always on the night of the eve, - Christmas Bells.

The fun we kids would have when opening up our presents on the day. The bread pudding Aunty Nicole would make, rich and dripping with brandy and with creamy caramel coating the sides and bottom of the pudding.

In my teens, it would be the excitement of midnight mass, when all the plain Janes from Sunday school would magically transform into lovely swans and how we boys would go around, huge foolish grins on our faces, wishing all and sundry a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I still wonder when exactly everything changed. When that sense of innocence was lost. When the real world started intruding on Christmas. And with the whens come the whys, the hows and the whats. Each question breaking the heart a little more that the one before.

The tragedy of every passing Christmas for me is the knowledge that as I grow up, grow older and grow wearier, the magic of Christmas dies a little bit more. As I see how everything around me - from the people, to the memories, to the world itself - changes and becomes a little more cynical and a little more bitter, I long for the past and wonder if the future will bode better or worse for me, for my loved ones and the world.