Happy Christmas!

I found these Christmas photos from long past long ago and I’m thinking of the Christmases gone by. Many were merry. Some were lonely. A few were sad and some passed by quietly without leaving any trace.

Dottie almost hidden by her much-loved Ben.

Almost all my Christmases were spent with family but it would be wrong to say they were all happy occasions. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not writing this to dampen your festive mood. I’m only saying that what we hope would be happy events don’t always turn out the way we want them. Minor calamities can happen—for instance at a party—someone accidentally pours red wine on the expensive dress you’ve borrowed from your sister-in-law. Or your best friend decides to have a temper tantrum and slights you by refusing to attend your party. Or a pretty young thing falls sick (for some obscure reason) and your husband or boyfriend drives her home. That’s not a problem unless the ten minute drive takes an hour or two!

Dottie, still an only child, at two years and ten months.

Sometimes real catastrophes occur—like the devastating Christmas tsunami off Sumatra in 2004 or the tropical storm, Greg, which swept away whole villages in Keningau in 1996.

I have had my share of personal disasters. My only regret is that I was not able to shield my kids from my feeling of despair and hopelessness; that I didn’t try hard enough to remain strong and kick self-pity out the door. Kids do not deserve gloomy Christmases. They’ll have their own share of heartache and headache and other miseries when they’re older and I feel we should do whatever we can to keep those unhappy situations till ‘later’. 

Unwrapping a gift from Santa!

So if you are a mother (or father) of young children, put on your cheerful faces and create happy moments for your kids so they’ll have beautiful memories to treasure and (later) to share with their own children.

A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all!