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Bet you didn't see this coming.

But here I am. On Christmas Eve (well, afternoon).

Most all of you will see this AFTER Christmas, which is just as well - becuase I haven't got a lot of good things to say about christmas.

I have always been accused of being a scrooge at christmas.

Why?

For those of you who don't know me, I'm chinese. And growing up in Taiwan, we didn't quite celebrate christmas the same way as the rest of the world. We didn't exchange gifts, trim trees, or sing xmas carols. As with all other festive occations, we celebrated christmas by eating a huge meal (lasting 4-5 hours) and gambling afterwards.

Gambling (when kids are involved) is pretty much a game of yatzee with 3 dice. Thus, there are no skills involved and win or lose depends strictly on luck.

One Christmas, when I about 8 years old, one of my deadbeat uncles got drunk and demanded his lost money back from me. Needless to say, I refused - he got mad - I called papa wu - problem solved. However, it was still an uncomfortable situation and that was the last year we gambled after "christmas" dinner.

I moved to the US when I was 13. And in the 20 some odd years since, I've never spent Christmas with my own parents. See, in order to establish themselves here, my parents had to switch their careers from (something glamourous) to running a chinese restaurant (not as glamourous). So what were they doing on Christmas? You got it - they were working.

Christmas is usually one of the busiest days for my family's restaurant. All the people who don't celebrate xmas (my good jewish friends) comes by for a wonderful meal before going off to see a movie. Hence, my parents were never around on christmas.

I was fortunate enough to have a best friend who family pretty much took me in as their own. So my first xmas night in the states, I ended up at spending xmas with them.

Then as I got older and managed to find girlfriends, I started spending christmas at my girlfriends' places with their families.

I remember my first christmas with a girlfriend's family. She was all excited to show me and tell me about her family's traditions - how they bake special cookies, make special breakfast, drink special egg nog...the whole bit. It warm and lovely and sticky sweet - the entire thing. You know that feeling when you first sunk your teeth in a cinnabon? Yeah, that feeling. That was how I felt the entire day. I thought, "wow. this is what I've been missing all these years living in taiwan?"

Yeah. It was great. See, on top of coming from a foreign country, I'm also an only child. My girlfriend at the time had a large family. So for the first time I realized what it was like to REALLY experience christmas in all it's glory. The presents, the food, the people, and best of all, no gambling and no fights.

Christmas was great.

However. That epiphany was short lived because not only did I ended up breaking up with her shortly thereafter, I started dating someone else by the following summer. And when next xmas rolled around, I was invited to spend xmas with my new girlfriend's family.

Warm. Sticky. Sweet.

It was everything xmas should be...again.

By the time college rolled around I've spent xmas with about 3 different families, and by the end of college I've been with 6 different families for this "special" day.

And it didn't matter if the family member's didn't get along. It didn't matter if John owed Jeff money and Jess is cheating on her husband and Bill broke up with Dave (and no one's supposed to know about it in the first place). Everyone got along (for the time being) and genuinely wished each other a merry christmas.

It was so over-the-top sweet my teeth's aching.

I remember how I felt back then. I thought about how I was an intruder, a tourist peeking into a family's intimate moment. It was worse than going to a funeral. At funerals people shut down to the outside world. Whereas on xmas they're sharing their happiness, their real emotions with you - a stranger, a tourist.

"Next year (if not, then the year after that) I'll be doing this with a whole different family and someone else will be sitting here in my place."

Christmas then became a special exhibit where I can go to experience what it's like to have a large family, a trimmed christmas tree, and the smell of gingerbread cookies in the house. But most of all, it's where I can see how people can temporarily and sometimes falsely check their baggage at the door and at least (for the time being) be genuinely happy together.

Yeah. I was just a little bit jaded.

For the past six years I've been lucky enough to find one woman and one family who've decided to keep me around. During that time, I've slowly shedded my tourist scales and gradually grown into a part of her family, my family.

I don't know if Christmas will ever mean the same to me as it does to some of you. I just know if some day, if my daughter (if and when I have a daughter) brings home her boyfriend for xmas, I'll know exactly what he's going through.

merry new years people.

One last thing, I'll be in Jamaica from 12/30 - 1/6. Yup, a whole week. (go ahead, be jealous...) So I'm sure there'll be plenty of entries from that trip.