Well it’s nearly that time of year! In fact less than a month to go now. I have to admit I’m not heavily into Christmas – and not that I have to explain myself – but I think I have a few valid reasons for this.

1. I’m Chinese and Buddhist (although not devoutly) and I do believe Christmas is a religious celebration
2. I don’t have many extended family here in Sydney/Australia and growing up I didn’t have any grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins around me to celebrate such events.
3. I don’t have any babies/children, nor does my sister or close friends here so it’s just all adults with no kids around us.

…but in saying that.. when I was a kid I did enjoy Christmas a lot. Even though we technically didn’t celebrate it because we’re not Christian we still had lots of fun. We had a 6 foot tall tree we put up, masses of decorations, and lights which took forever to put up around the tree. We did the whole picking presents thing and wrapping them and putting them under the tree, and trying to guess what we got. I have vivid memories of spending fun times with good friends and every year enjoying the 1.5 month long break over summer (yes we have Christmas and New Year over our school summer holidays). When I was studying at university this break became 3.5 months long from mid-November till the end of February. Ahhh… those were the days! But, we didn’t have turkey (or whatever it is you are ’supposed’ to have). We had the usual home-cooked Chinese food (which I guess is kind of funny in hindsight).

I know I probably sounded pretty cynical above but I still do enjoy the festivities and togetherness and happiness it brings. It just seems to be more fun when you are a kid or have a kid, and a big extended family to celebrate with.

Anyway, now that I live in an apartment there is certainly no room for any 6 foot tall trees. I thought I’d share some pics of my trees from the past 2 years.

2006

I wasn’t going to have a tree then a few days before Christmas I spotted this tiny little mini tree in one of those bargain stores. It was the last one and they gave it to me for the bargain basement price of $3.95. It’s only about 6 inches tall – it’s tiny! I then happened to find these miniature baubles at Borders (which ended up costing a lot more than the tree itself) but they were so pretty and perfect I thought. (that’s Mr Super Camel standing underneath the tree).

2007

About 6 weeks before Christmas last year I went to Ikea (this was in Shanghai when I was living there). Anyway, we ended up getting this Stranne lamp and then a week later when we had a friend come and visit he asked if that was going to be our Christmas tree. Now I had never thought of it but it suddenly seemed like a great idea! I then went to Carrefour (French supermarket/hypermarket chain and popular haunt for expats) and tried to find the smallest decorations I could.

So anyway, this is what I came up with! And I was pretty ecstatic with the results:

I’m still thinking about what to do this year.. but as usual the great ideas will probably come to me at the last minute, and out of the blue!

…and in other news it’s been almost one year since I became a Flickr Pro member (5th Dec) so it’s time to renew my membership.