Originally published at Jingwen. Please leave any comments there.

Despite the whole not-very-festive environment I’ve been brought up in, I think it’s almost obligatory for personal bloggers to have a post-festive season entry summarising everything they’ve eaten, received, and done? Far be it for me to flout this unwritten rule of the blog community – prepare yourself for long-windedness.

Christmas Eve

I actually worked for most of Christmas Eve, packing up boxes for an impending office move (as previously mentioned). This was about half of the total amount of boxes – it was a long, sweaty and dusty day. I did manage to get home by 5pm to clean myself up before heading over to my aunt’s for an Asian-style Christmas Eve dinner though. This essentially means that all the ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ bring a dish (Asian cuisine of course!), and we all stuff our faces with food. Chicken wings, lamb chops, potato salad, curry and vermicelli noodles with pickled veggies? That’s our version of Christmas fare.

Then of course, the adults start playing endless rounds of mahjong and drinking endless cups of tea as soon as dinner is over, while the children are relegated to a back bedroom to entertain ourselves the best we can. We might be in our twenties and late teens, but my cousins and I (and the children of other family friends) are still considered to be the ‘children’. Admittedly we fit into our designated roles remarkably well – we played Taboo and Pictionary with a few glasses of wine each, well into the early hours of the morning.

As a side note, I am vaguely communicating with my parents again, in that we can be in the same room without screaming at each other. Polite conversation with my mother is a good start though, as well as the fact that my father deigned to speak a sentence to me: “Refill my cup of tea”.

Christmas

I woke up on Christmas Day at Dylan’s house with presents to open! As a joke gift, he bought me a Hello Kitty candy set – as an Asian female, I’m obviously supposed to love Hello Kitty. (Which I do, secretly, but don’t tell him that because it’ll only reinforce the stereotype.) My real gift though, was a body board – and to celebrate Christmas, we drove two hours down the coast and spent the day at Cape Paterson together so that I could have my first ever body-boarding experience. We could have gone to a more local beach, but as Melbourne is situated within a bay, he decided it would be more exciting to drive further out past the peninsula so that we could surf in the actual ocean with real waves, rather than within a calmer bay.

I had a blast – absolutely an overall awesome day. We’re now contemplating getting into snorkeling as a hobby, as the coastline around Cape Paterson is absolutely littered with rock pools and marine life. I’m considering buying snorkeling sets for his birthday in February, though I guess ideally we should have the equipment by mid-January when the weather will be calmer and it’ll be easier to snorkel in the open ocean.

Oh, and I made him a type of mini-hamper gift with things he likes – a selection of different nuts from the market (walnuts, almonds, macadamias), a bottle of our favourite wine (Brown Brothers Moscato), a new coffee percolator and some organic coffee beans (he’s sick of drinking instant coffee at my place, so now he can have actual coffee), and some home-made dark chocolate with ginger. Nothing remarkable, just a few things I threw together into a basket, but he seemed to like it, so all is good.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day is a big day for my cousin and I. It’s traditionally one of the biggest retail days of the year with enormous post-Christmas discounts, and we have gotten into the habit of taking full advantage of the sales. We ended up shopping from eight in the morning to eight at night, across two different shopping centres. I ended up buying:

1. A woollen underlay for my mattress – $89.95 from $299
2. Leopard print micro shorts – $9.95 from $69.95
3. A print top – $14.95 from $79.95
4. Earrings – $5 from $14.95
5. A headband – $5 from $29.95

I was remarkably controlled this year in my spending – the woollen underlay was my biggest purchase by far, but as I had been needing one since I moved out, and managed to pick up a trans-seasonal one (works in both winter and summer) for a third of the original price, I think it was a justified purchase. The top and shorts were a bit of a splurge as they’re really too casual and ‘fun’ for work, but I really think it’s about time I start dressing my age. The accessories were just cute cute cute, and cheap enough for me.

Overall, it was a fairly chilled couple of days. There was no blatant displays of consumerism (sure I went sale shopping, but didn’t go overboard!), and I only stuffed myself with food for one meal, so it was probably a million times more controlled and less indulgent than most people’s Christmases!

Originally published at Jingwen. Please leave any comments there.

This a very quick 1000th post to wish you all a Merry Christmas. :)

Originally published at Jingwen. Please leave any comments there.

This is a hallway in my house that leads from the bedrooms/bathroom to the kitchen. It has been like this for six months – and everything there belongs to my female housemate. In that time, she has made no attempt whatsoever to clear her personal belongings out of what should be a communal hallway, and other people in the house are forced to go the long way around to the kitchen, going through the living room and dining room. Regular hints from both my male housemate (whose family owns the house) and myself haven’t worked at all.

Now imagine that clutter in a bedroom. What you’re now thinking of is her bedroom. She has to literally climb over bags and boxes of things in order to get into bed. I had to strong-arm her in order to get her to throw out six months worth of old newspapers that were nearly waist-height. Did she want to keep the newspapers? Yes. Did I have to bully her to get her to throw them out? Yes. Was I justified? Yes. Combined with the dozen or so oil burners and candles scattered around her room, it was simply an unnecessary fire hazard. Could she clear out three year old magazines and other unnecessary papers that are also a fire hazard? Yes. Will she? No.

Is it that she needs all her possessions? She hasn’t touched it or even looked at anything in the hallway in six months, so one would presume not. Is it a time issue – does she simply not have the time to clear it up? Clearly not – she works hospitality (primarily weekends), but is free throughout the week. Watching television for six or seven hours each day does take up a lot of time, and I guess watching daytime soap operas is serious business.

Now this is the first time I’ve ever lived in a share house, but logic would dictate that though she might also be paying rent, a standard rule of house-sharing should be that one’s activities and actions should not hinder other people’s living spaces and lifestyle. Communal areas should be kept communal. You can do whatever you want with your own space/bedroom (within reason, e.g. fire and other hazards should be removed), but communal areas should be kept in a live-able and usable state by all members of the household. That hallway doesn’t fit the criteria.

So, when I buy her organisational stuff for Christmas? Sure, it might be blunt and somewhat of an insult, but if it acts as a kick up the pants and gets her to get her act together and recognise that it is socially unacceptable to hinder other people’s living space, then I really don’t give a shit. It was either that or my other house mate cracking the shits and asking her to leave and find somewhere else to live within two weeks (which he was on the verge of, and could still possibly do if she doesn’t get the message). Between either insulting her, or kicking her out to find another share house…lesser of two evils. She can deal with it.

I could have, of course, bought her things she would probably like a lot more. I could have bought cosmetics or body stuff (soaps, lotions, etc.). I could have bought candles, essential oils, oil burners. I could have bought clothes or accessories. But when she already has that many material possessions (and buys more of the same junk every week though she’s always complaining that she doesn’t have enough money and that it’s a struggle to get the $100 rent together each week), I don’t feel sympathetic enough to contribute to that level of mindless consumerism.

Originally published at Jingwen. Please leave any comments there.

It’s no secret that I’m not particularly into the Christmas spirit. My family have never celebrated Christmas, and I’ve never really understood the concept of gift exchanges – why not just all agree to buy yourself the thing you want most, rather than have gifts that you don’t want given to you by others? I think the same of birthday presents – I’d much rather get money so I can buy my own large present, rather than have lots of little things given to me.

This year however, marks the first Christmas I’ve spent away from family, with two house mates who believe firmly in the concept of gift-giving, a fancy Christmas lunch, etc. Because I knew that they’d buy me presents, I kind of felt obligated to buy them presents as well. So, in the practical and logical way that I do things, I bought:

1. For my female housemate: Organisational things. A shoe rack you can hang over a door, hanging organisers for wardrobes, etc. Her room is a pigsty (by anyone’s standards, not just my own anal standards!), and I thought it would come in handy for her to be able to organise at least some of her possessions.
2. For my male housemate: Jumpers and scarves – he’s heading to Italy for three weeks in January, and has no winter clothes. He wears Tshirts and shorts year-round in Australia, but that’s really not an option for a European winter, so I bought him some warm clothes to wear over there.

Dylan tells me that I’ve misunderstood the whole concept of Christmas gift giving. He claims that Christmas gifts needn’t have to be about practicality and whether or not the recipient will use it, but that it’s about something thoughtful and personal, something frivolous that will put a smile on the person’s face. To teach me a lesson about what a “true” Christmas is about, he’s already claimed that he’s going to wake me up at 5am to open presents, then take me out for “experiences” all day. I have no idea what these “experiences” are going to be, because he won’t even tell me what I should wear for the day to ensure that I’m appropriately dressed for the activities.

Anyway, point is, I personally think that a practical gift is more likely to give long-term happiness to the recipient. Sure, a gag gift might give you a few laughs on the day, but after that it’s probably just going to go in a drawer and be forgotten about. A practical gift like the two I got however, will give ongoing benefits to the recipients!

Question of the Week: What kind of gift giver are you? Do you aim for practicality, or do you get anything that will put a smile on the recipient’s face?