I don’t celebrate Christmas for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, for me, Christmas somehow brings back a lot of memories.

As a child, I would remember my annual third term holidays in Singapore. Hearing Christmas carols whilst traipsing through the toy section of CK Tang and Yaohan. For some bizarre reason, Christmas in Singapore reminded me of a camera ad that went “A Yashica, a Yashica, a Yashica for Christmas” (sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree). In KL, I’d remember bumping into “Santa Claus” at The Weld, clanging a bell and giving out sweets. One thing for sure, our local Santas didn’t really do the ho-ho-ho bit whenever I saw them in shopping centres.

When I was in fourth year at medical school, my then two housemates were with their respective other halves, which meant I had the whole flat to myself. It got a little lonely, and Christmas meant flipping through the week’s Radio Times to see which movie I should record on the VCR. I remembered trundling through the Newcastle winter from a friend’s Christmas lunch (where I had my first, and thankfully last, morsel of duck) just so that I could be back in time to tape Die Hard.

Since then, Christmas had always been a rather melancholic period of the year for me. Wanna get me going? Put on Sinatra’s Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and you’ll know what I mean. Nowadays, the only thing about Christmas that makes me smile with glee is Boxing Day. And this year, we’re hitting Bicester. hell, yeah.

Well, as Old Blue Eyes sang it – have yourself a merry little Christmas now.