Christmas Cheer

There's no other city in India that celebrates Christmas quite the way that Calcutta does. The Christmas cheer does not spare people of any religion - how else do you explain people from all religions walking up & down Park Street wearing Santa hats??!!

Park Street is another story in itself. It seems like the entire population of Calcutta has poured on to it. The street has been lit up since days. They apparently also had a Christmas Carnival that I missed. Flury's was packed to the gills with people queuing up outside the shop to have lunch there and buy Christmas cakes. Apparently, it's some kind of a Calcutta tradition to eat at Flury's on Christmas Day.

My day consisted of having lunch with my girl friends at my favourite Chinese restaurant in the city - Flavours of China - followed by plum cake at Flury's. And the weather is perfect - the winter chill accompanied by a bright, glowing sun. I am SO glad I spent Christmas in Cal rather than Sydney. There is something just very wrong about a summer Christmas.

Going by the rate I've been posting, I'm pretty sure I won't be posting again until after New Year's. So I hope you all had yourselves a Merry Christmas. Wish you a very Happy New Year and happy holidays :)

My 'Go-To' Books

I had the most wonderful day today, even though I spent it all by myself.

It's a long weekend. I woke up at 10 in the morning, dawdled over tea, had breakfast and went back to sleep at noon. Woke up at 2, showered, had lunch, went to Barista with my 'Adrian Mole', had a lovely hazelnut mocha and blueberry muffin, ran a couple of errands and am back home doing nothing.

Why can't we have more such days? :(

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I have a few "go-to" books and movies. These are books/movies that I turn to when I'm feeling low or have been having rough days.

My "go-to" books include the Bridget Jones Diaries (both) & Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Bridget Jones because...come on...it's Bridget Jones! Here's this girl who's constantly fretting about her weight, very much like me. She keeps landing herself in the most embarassing situations but she also has the courage to laugh at herself. She is being courted by two sex-on-toast men - one the biggest gentelman and the other possibly the biggest jerk in town - and she keeps falling for the jerk just because he is glib enough to talk his way into her heart. Now that's a situation many of us (women) are familiar with, aren't we? But in the end she goes with the nice guy. What's not to like?

Of course, the diary format also works for me. The book is fast-paced and not unnecessarily wordy. And I don't need to read it from start to finish at one go. I can read a few pages when I'm sad, put it down, pick it back up after some time and continue reading from where I left!

I also love Confessions of a Shopaholic. Becky Bloomwood is hilarious! She comes up with ingenious excuses to buy things she doesn't need. She also writes the funniest letters to her bank manager asking him to waive off her credit card bill and increase her credit limit! We could call her stupid and hate her for not having the mental strength to put an end to her shopaholism, but we don't because we know there's a little bit of Becky Bloomwood in all of us.

I've discovered two other books that could become my "go-to" books soon. One is 'Dork' by Sidin Vadukut. The book has workplace humor and it's outrageously funny. If you haven't read it yet, I'd say you MUST. You'll be rolling on your sides laughing.

The other book that I'm currently reading and finding absolutely adorable is 'The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Years'. Here's this adoloscent obsessed with the spots on his face, which he's convinced is a result of the poor diet his mom feeds him, and the size of his "thing". He's a drama-queen, a chauvinist (he expects his mom to worship the ground he walks on & he'll let his girlfriend work at a cake shop or some place like that but not to have a career), but he also cares for old people & animals and looks out for his father who's having a rough time. The humor is subtle but it's definitely there.

Then there's 'Love Actually', the movie. It's my favorite movie EVER. I think I've watched the movie more than 20 times and it makes me happy every single time. It's got so much love floating around - love between a brother & sister, between a father & his step-son, even between a musician & his manager (!). Love that transcends boundaries of social strata and race. And it's got this Christmas theme running all the way through. And we LOOOOOOOOVE Christmas over here.

Which reminds me, Christmas is right 'round the corner and I haven't bought my decorations yet! I have a little tree from last year but I need to buy the ornaments & mistletoe & streamers. And plum cake! Oh, Christmas is going to be so much fun!! :)

So I've Been Gorging on Plum Cakes

Between Friday & yesterday (Monday), I finished half a kg of plum cake all by myself. “Rich” plum cake to be precise. And promptly went and bought another half kg to tide me over till Christmas!!

Did I mention I’m trying to lose weight?

Oh well, I’m having myself a merry little Christmas right now.

Of Peace, Hope & Faith

I am one of those people who're hopelessly in love with Christmas. Don't ask me why? There is no specific reason why Christmas warms my heart more than any Indian festival, it just does. The irony is that inspite of having gone to a Catholic school for 15 years of my life, I wasn't so crazy about Christmas then as I became after school. It's probably the memories of celebrating Christmas during my college years in the US that made the festival so endearing.

This is what our Christmas celebrations in college used to be like : The city would start getting decorated mid-November, as people started their holiday shopping. Malls, airports, streets, restaurants, hotels all would have giant Christmas trees and be decked up with lights. Every store you walked in would have Christmas carols playing in the background & Santa smiling indulgently at you. We used to play Secret Santa every Christmas, where all of us friends would write out names on small chits of paper, put them all into a box & everyone would draw one name each. The deal was that you had to get a gift within $5 for the person whose name you drew, without the person knowing it's you who's getting them a gift! The day before college shut down for Christmas, we would all meet in one of our rooms & would one by one give gifts to the person whose name we pulled out. The next day we would all be headed 'home', wherever that was (My Christmas used to be spent either in Chicago or New York, where I had family). The fun part of this game wasn't only the exchange of gifts but also those 10 days leading upto it when each person had to keep a secret & figure out something that the other person would like & appreciate.

Now, my Christmas celebrations start mid-December & last till the end of January. I decorate my home & my work station with Christmas stuff. Like every year, this year too I got this GORGEOUS Christmas tree that already has some beautiful decorations on it, and with a little bit more it will truly light up my living room. I also got a beautiful wreath for my door & a Santa to put beside the tree!

My mother, who loves Christmas almost as much as I do & is a great sport in life, will be with me this Christmas, and the two of us have drawn up some great plans to celebrate the day, which include an English Christmas lunch followed by a movie (preferably a Christmas movie - my all-time favorite is 'Love Actually'). In the evening we're calling a couple of my friends over for plum pudding & hot apple cider.

I look forward to Christmas every year but this year I'm particularly eager for it to come around. I was thinking why and you know what I came up with? We're living in times of such fear, insecurity, despair & hatred. Most of us are scared to go to a mall, movie theater or other crowded public places. Our society is becoming more & more fragmented by the day. There is so much hatred towards people belonging to other religions, so much regionalism, so much distrust towards one another. Everything, including life itself, seems so transient, and I have a bad feeling that things will only get worse with each passing year - at least for a few years UNTIL we take care of the menace of terrorism (globally) and divisionary politics (within India) once & for all.
Come to think of it, this is such a sad way to live life. Living in fear is no way to live. It is simply counting down to death because our aim then is to make it through each day.

I refuse to live in fear. I want to live believing there is still a lot goodness in this world, that is much stronger than evil. I want to believe there is still a lot of love within all of us that is much deeper than the hatred in the entire world put together. I want to believe. This Christmas I'm going to say a prayer for peace, for hope, for faith and for humanity.

All Christmassy on the Scarlett Front

I am happy. Make that very happy. No, ecstatic actually. Why?

Because it's almost Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In case you can't tell from the pictures on my blogs, the 'Jingle Bells' carol right below this post & the countless exclamation marks above....I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's my favoritestest festival of the entire year! I like Diwali too but Diwali is more about being with family etc. Whereas Christmas is all about warmth & joy, and Christmas decorations are much prettier than decorations for any other festival. Take malls for example. They are so prettily decorated around Christmas!! Actually, I love everything about Christmas...the decorations, the plum cake, the midnight mass. The very mention of Christmas generates visions of warmth, fireplaces & apple ciders in my head. Not to mention winter & snow!

Sigh...I really do love Christmas.

So let's all be happy & celebrate Christmas. Like the Delhiites say - MERI CHRISTMAS, TERI BHI CHRISTMAS!!! :D

This one's for Moonshine, a Delhiite to the core who shares my love for Christmas. Guess where it's from, Moonshine!!

It's That Time of the Year

*Title borrowed from Moonsine (this is what I thought her latest post was about :)

Now that I've ensured she can't sue me, let's get on with it :-)

Dashing through the snow

In a one horse open sleigh

Over the fields we go

Laughing all the way

Bells on bob tails ring

Making spirits bright

What fun it is to laugh and sing

A sleighing song tonight

Hey, jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Oh, what fun it is to ride

In a one horse open sleigh

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Oh, what fun it is to ride

In a one horse open sleigh

A day or two ago

I thought I'd take a ride

And soon Miss Fanny Bright

Was seated by my side

The horse was lean and lank

Misfortune seemed his lot

We got into a drifted bank

And then we got upshot

Hey, jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Oh, what fun it is to ride

In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Oh, what fun it is to ride

In a one horse open sleigh

Never Too Early to Sing the Carols

There’s still 115 days to go to Christmas. So what? It’s never too early to get excited about Christmas!!

Christmas has a very warm, fuzzy feeling associated with it. It’s about happiness. It’s about celebrations. It’s about love and being with the people you love the most. It’s about forgiving people. It’s about patching up with people you’ve had differences with. It’s about The Holidays!

Maybe it’s my years spent in the US, where everyone looks forward to Christmas as much as Indians look forward to the monsoons every year after parched summer months, which is responsible for my love for Christmas. The malls, airports, streets, restaurants are all decked up with Christmas decorations. There are Christmas carols being played inside every store. Coffee shops serve seasonal creations such as Eggnog Latte, Apple Ciders & Christmas/Holiday blend of coffee. There is a Santa Claus in every mall handing out gifts and candy. Families hang out together, while friends hug & kiss each other. The only emotions to be seen around are love and happiness. The icing on the cake? If it snows!!

What can be prettier than a white Christmas?

I love putting up a small Christmas tree in a corner of my house and decorating it with ornaments & lights. I love having friends over on Christmas eve, playing carols, having a traditional Christmas dinner and exchanging gifts. But what I love the most about Christmas is that unlike Hindu festivals that are all about noise, pollution, inconveniencing others and creating public nuisance, Christmas is celebrated the way it should be – quietly within our own homes, surrounded by happiness and amidst the people we love.

How is it possible to not love a festival as beautiful as Christmas?