Less than a week until I head back to the United States for the Christmas holiday. It has been hard to reconcile that it is already Christmas time. With none of my usual seasonal cues my mind just hasn’t processed it all; I mean without A Charlie Brown Christmas I am totally lost. Not to say that there aren’t Christmas decorations everywhere, I mean Hong Kong is a very retail oriented place and probably the only reason there aren’t more holiday decorations and such is that it would actually get in the way of the mobs and the merchandise they desire. Still Hong Kong is not a place I associate with Christmas at this point in my life. The other night I saw this red blob floating above my head – I was stymied for a minute thinking “what the hell is that thing” until I realized it was actually Santa Claus, a cheerfully weary, retro styled, beer swilling Santa Claus. It did confuse my mind for a minute – like picking up a fork and not knowing quite how to work it after using chopsticks.
I mostly wear headphones everywhere so I am oblivious to most noise but my IPod was out of juice the other day and I actually was exposed to mind melting torture. Let me just say for the record, I hate most Christmas music. I am not a Scrooge but you do hit a point in your life where if you hear I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus or The Little Drummer Boy one more time your head might spontaneously combust. Trust me, you have not experienced pain until you have heard all your “holiday favorites” sung by Chinese children’s choirs and Canto-Pop princesses accompanied by music that sounds like it is coming out of robot. Everywhere you go they are playing this hideous music at twice the volume they normally use to abuse their customers. Forget waterboarding, just play that music, people will spill the beans in a hurry. So it must have been subliminal Christmas devil music that did me in- I fell into a shopping blackout. Next thing you know I am in coming home with a puppy (relax Gumbo I am not cheating on you exactly).
So now that I am purchasing artificial pets and don’t recognize a the ultimate Fat Man in his red suit, I think it is the exactly the right time for me to head home for a while
So I will be on break for a few weeks but stay tuned as I will be back in time for New Year’s Eve.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Ugh!
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