HAPPILY ANTICIPATING THE DAY AFTER

Only six more days and we can put all of this hoopla behind us. Well, those of us who do not avail ourselves of the fabulous post-holiday sales. Such as myself. For others, the tension lasts a little longer.

Like several friends I shall be eating Chinese food on Christmas. Not because I am Jewish -- I'm not, if you were wondering -- but purely because I don't have a large warm family gathered around me driving me up the wall with their cheer and togetherness and incessant demands for dead bird and stuffing. If it were up to me, ALL holidays would be celebrated with Chinese food.


Purim: Chinese food.
Passover: Sweet and sour quinoa, matzo ball hot and sour soup, and lots of parsley.
Easter: Kung Pao Rabbit, and tea-eggs.
Saint Patricks Day: Five days of cabbagy fried noodles, leftover from the office party.
Independence Day: Ketchup on everything; ketchup was invented by the Chinese.
Labor Day: Microwave Chinese food.
Halloween: Late night muck in a carton.
Thanksgiving: Turkey jook and a yautiu.
Saint Nicholas Day: Deep fried Chinese something, in honour of the Netherlanders, for whom darn-well everything is deepfried.
Chanuka: Egg-rolls and sesame balls for eight days.
Christmas: Deep fried stuff again; that's all your kinfolks really want.
Plus heaps of Szechuan beef and ma po taufu. Then they'll curl up and sleep it off in front of the teevee.
New Years Eve: Long life noodles, saang choi and meatballs, and ho si faat choi, followed by enough cheap champagne to float a battleship.


The best place for Chinese food is, naturally, at a chainrestaurant in a mall, so that the shopaholics can start spending money immediately upon cleaning their plates. The rest of us will retire to the ball-pit to sleep it off. Perhaps with cigars, after chasing the little kiddies out.

The great thing about this plan is that those of us who are diet-conscious don't need to fret, and the rest of us get cigars.

Nothing says camaraderie quite like cigars and comatose inaction.
No plates, no tinsel, no leftovers, no sugar, no fuss.
No Jesus, and no dead birds.

Personally, I have always felt that Christmas should be mandatorily celebrated on the third Sunday in December, so that we can do New Years Eve on the fourth Sunday. That would be ever so much more convenient for everybody.


同埋一杯港式奶茶

So yes, on Christmas day I shall head over to Chinatown for early lunch, wander around a bit afterwards smoking strong Virginia tobacco out of several good briar pipes, then maybe hot milk-tea and a yummalicious snackipoo, before probably heading over to the Oxxy for another smoke, and a drink among all the other single male losers.

Nothing special. Maybe some chowfun, or little porky meatballs and hot sauce. Dimsummy items, and a bowl of jook. Charsiu sou, pei dan sou, lou po beng. Tong mai yat pui gongsik naaichaa.
I can't wait for the return of normalcy.

I'll probably open a tin of Best Brown Flake to celebrate the season.
That's gevaldig festive.


Six more days.



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