Christmas conundrums and surprises

What constitutes Christmas music is up for debate over here. I have never considered Amazing Grace nor The Battle Hymn of the Republic the kind of songs that spring from my lips at Christmas time. Yet as I wandered around Hypermart with sweetie one and sweetie two during the holidays, those were a couple of the songs on the Yule Time Top 40 Chart. It appeared that the criteria used for this compilation was if it had ANY kind of religious connotation, whether applicable or not, it was on the list.

The other holiday songs we heard, that are on my more typical play list, were rendered in a rather odd jazzy, show tune fashion. Instead of feeling all warm and fuzzy, I just felt warm and confused. I hope that Indonesians really don't think that is how the songs actually go. It could possibly be the case that this makes them more appealing to their ears. And bless their hearts they were trying to get in the spirit of things or at least go along with it all and make us feel "Christmasy."

As we walked around the store picking up supplies, songs were blaring out at a pretty fair volume. The up-side to this was it saved us from the perpetual jingle that they normally play while I shop there. For days that jingle will stay in my head. I am forced to sing the Gilligan's Island theme song to get rid of it. That is desperation for you.

There were Christmas decorations for sale and artificial trees. I scored a great Indonesian version of Monopoly for my son and for my friend Mary's son. It was mostly in Bahasa Indonesia and had Indonesian properties and cities. Instead of utilities it had the major airports around the country listed. The only place where they missed the mark was they didn't use rupiah for their money. It was just boring Monopoly money.

In the land where everyone is a millionaire, simply due to the fact that 100,000 rupiah is equivalent to about $10.00 US this could have been fun. You would have had to have stacks and stacks of money to buy properties or houses. Pass go. Collect 2,000,000.00 rupiah.

There was also the mental issue of just trying to get used to having a tropical Christmas. I know for at least half of the world this is normal operating procedure. Even after living on the Gulf Coast for so many years and having a warm weather holiday, this was even more mind boggling. Don't misunderstand, I am only voicing an observation about the differences. It would have been an even bigger blow to my system if I had been trying to get home to family in Europe or the Northeastern part of the US and gotten caught up in all of the travel issues they were having. My expat friend, who now lives in Canada, got trapped in all of that. She finally made it to her family in England, but not before getting stranded for a while in the South of France. Being the ever resourceful person that she is, she used it as a shopping opportunity to buy Christmas gifts for her family. Way to shop girl!

One very delightful surprise we had was that our staff got together and gave us Christmas gifts. Not only was I totally surprised, but very touched. These gifts are now proudly displayed in our home. We will always remember the thoughtfulness behind them and the loving people who gave them to us.

From the US, we also got some fun and thoughtful gifts from family. That was very appreciated. One of my brothers had spied some long, thin metal icicles at a craft fair last fall and bought some. When we were kids, my family had these dangling treasures on every Christmas tree we decorated. They were made of tin and were muted colors and would twirl around and catch the light with the slightest breeze or from the poking of inquisitive fingers of a child. Our housekeeper is going to love them when we hang them on our pohon natal (Christmas tree) next year. She loves sparkley things.

For our Christmas dinner we had roast chicken stuffed with herbs and surrounded by potatoes and carrots. We had Ocean Spray canned cranberry sauce, bok choy that was stir fried with red chillies and garlic and of course, a side dish of rice. Our dessert was pisang goreng - fried bananas coupled with vanilla ice cream. It was a blend of new and old, East and West. It was a very nice meal which we all ate while dressed in shorts and tee shirts.

While there were conundrums, there was a beautiful blending of things that made it a very joyous occasion. May we keep that spirit all year long.