I’d packed to visit my then-partner’s place in the Midlands, full of festive cheer and a suitcase filled with cute outfits. Anyway, most of them returned to London unworn, because nobody told me that a proud British tradition is that you simply don’t leave the house for the entire period. Maybe you have a turkey-stuffed toddle around the nearest green space, but that’s about it.
Christmas in Singapore, where I grew up, is just one more day in which to indulge the national pastimes of shopping and eating. The shops don’t close. Restaurants stay open. You don’t have to be trapped in a living room with your uncle, whom you only ever see on Boxing Day, going on about how Donald Trump might actually be good for the global economy.
Foreigners think it is all high tea and scones when instead it is chippie dinners, chipped mugs of builder’s tea and nipping out for a fag at work so you can complain about your boss – not exactly the stuff of glamour. Nowhere is this more obvious than in how we celebrate the holidays.
We start early with prosecco and orange juice in the morning – a transcendent, hope-filled gesture towards health and vitality. Alas, by the end, we are spiritually – sometimes physically – crawling on the floor, raiding the cupboards for whatever’s left. A dusty bottle of Chambord mixed with cranberry juice and the dregs from a Disaronno that your dad’s colleagues gave him when he retired? Bartender, one more!
Believing in Santa is about more than just magic
Read MoreI’d assumed, based on how everyone around me kept going on about it, that Christmas dinner was something unique. But no: it’s a Sunday roast with a few extra bits thrown in, and they don’t even bring that much to the table. Bread sauce, for instance, is just beige chunks. I’ll happily eat it, but I can’t quite get over the feeling that it looks like something a peasant toddler would have sicked up in the 12th century.
Up until recently, my Singaporean mum tried her best to recreate a traditional Christmas dinner, but she chafed against the cultish strictures of the meal, including the idea that everyone had to be present for it on the 25th. Depending on her mood and extended family scheduling conflicts, the sit-down gets postponed all the way up till the 29th.
But there’s just something to be said for a chicken satay chaser after roast ham. This too could be you, if you liberated yourself from tradition.
But if everyone collectively embraced the idea that the way we celebrate in Britain is objectively strange and weird, maybe we can let ourselves off the hook, so we won’t be so disappointed if the roasties are a little off or your brother forgot to pick up the cranberry sauce from Tesco.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
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