Christmas musings

This Christmas I have no idea why I keep procrastinating with finishing up the wrapping of my Christmas presents and writing my Christmas cards. I’m not exactly overly stressed up as I do not have a lot of crazy projects at work to handle for the moment. Somehow I’m not really excited with the presents bit this year. Maybe because I have to wrap SO MANY (including my mum’s)!

With Christmas coming up and all the festive activities and promotions taking place in the hotel, it is so easy to forget why I celebrate Christmas. Being in Marketing Communications, I’m being forced to place myself in the mindset that promotions are the best way to pull in more business, and the best time to feature promotions is during the festive season when everyone is in the celebratory mood. Basically, it boils down to money – and I’m the one who has to do the dirty work of pushing out these news to the public. Again, it’s all about the money – because I’m being paid to do so!

I’ve got to keep reminding myself of the real meaning of Christmas. It’s really not that difficult – in my job, there’s always tons of information that comes along with the festive season, but in real life, Christmas means just one word – “Jesus”. I was looking through quotes about Christmas (I have the cheesy habit of writing poems and quotes in my Christmas cards), and I came across this quirky little poem which made me laugh:

Roses are reddish
Violets are bluish
If it weren’t for Christmas
We’d all be Jewish

How true! If it weren’t for the birth of Christ, we’d be like them Jewish folks still wondering when Christ will come down to earth. I wonder how they share the Good News when they cannot proclaim that Jesus has already come and gone, when we are already awaiting His second coming. Sounds pretty strange to me. Anyway, isn’t it wonderful to know that out of all the religions, Jesus is the only God who actually came to earth to ‘touch base’ with His people? (Buddha doesn’t count ‘cos he isn’t a god – Eh, unless you are a Satanic worshipper then you might be pleased to know that the devil is in town, at least in the Supernatural TV series hehehe)

I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year and meeting up with loved ones (too bad Mr Loh will be returning to his hometown; I’ll miss him terribly). Can’t wait for the annual sleepover with my church mates and my mini party with my clique from work. There’s lots more to look forward to actually.  After all that’s been said and done, I must say I’m truly blessed to have a happy loving caring family, crazy friends who love me, colleagues who care, and my dream job – among other things. But the greatest blessing of all is to have received the unconditional love of God. (Actually, folks, we’ve all experienced a love that knows no boundaries – we just gotta wake up from our stupor and realise it!)

In the mood for love and Christmas

As I was reminded this afternoon, Christmas is only about 40 days away. After all the pre-Christmas preparations I have done at work and all the hype with the media, I’ve been in a festive mood since last week. Even though the hotel hasn’t officially kicked off with Christmas decorations yet, I have already made decorations out of recyclable materials and hung them all around my department. They are so pretty!!! *gushes* Okay okay, enough self-praise.

At home, I have been blasting Josh Groban Christmas carols. Ah, so nice. I don’t normally listen to him but he’s got fantastic Christmas carols from his Noel album (I first heard them in Nic’s aeroplane car while he was driving me home one night). His versions make Christmas feel very grand, and not cheesy like some other versions of Christmas carols. I really love traditional Christmas carols and quite dislike modern Christmas songs – unless it’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” or “All I Want For Christmas Is You” (I’m a big fan of Love Actually – yeah, who would have thought cranky little Cheryl would like such a soppy romance movie?)

It’s strange that I embrace Christmas now. When I was in my teens, I used to detest Christmas. Maybe the fault lay with the unstable raging hormones, but I used to do nasty things to try to ruin Christmas for people. When people played Christmas carols, I would blast Metallica to block out the merrymaking and wallow in misery. Looking back, I was such a Grinch!

But I’ve grown up now. I’ve embraced my faith and the story behind Christmas. I’ve found Jesus. I’ve learnt to be a better person. I’ve learnt to love and to accept love. Most importantly I’m no longer an awkward pimply teenager who had an attitude problem and issues with everyone (now just a few people), hahaha…

Come on, people, gimme some Christmas loving!

Writer’s block

I’ve been suffering from writer’s block.

For two weeks, I put off finishing my festive press release. There was just so much to write about and so many details to include. On top of that, I had to be imaginative and dream up concepts and ideals before it is even Christmas. I had no inspiration whatsoever.

Thank God, however, that some tiny bit of inspiration finally hit me yesterday and I was motivated to complete my press release. It’s now awaiting approval before we send it out! *crosses fingers*