#27 Merry Christmas!

Dear Mr. Santa Claus,

     Hi, Mr. Santa! It’s nice to write you a letter in this great Christmas season. My name is Vincent Ti. I'm a seven-year-old boy and I live in Malaysia. Although I don’t know if Mr. Santa can really read my letter but I would like to thank you for the miniature toy car you presented me last year. I know Mr. Santa must be busy sending out gifts and attending to every children around this time. You must be tired. I’ve been really good this year, I stopped bullying my sister whenever my parents are away from home and I always finished my homework. Mr. Santa, I saw a big big remote control car at the supermarket last week. Can you fulfill my wish by giving me that this year? The car is red in colour and I like it very much! And how are you, Rudolph the reindeer? Please send Mr. Santa to my home. Great love. I’ll give this letter to my dad so that he can mail it to the North Pole tomorrow.

                                                                                                                                Love   Vincent   xoxo

     This is the letter I found inside my dad’s drawer a little while ago. Based on the date written on the letter, I believe it was playfully scribbled by me exactly 15 years ago.

   

     There are more than dozens of grammatical errors in the contents of the letter and it took me some time for editing before posting it here. Indeed, the contents were not very much different form the original one except for some funny remarks that I purposely removed (laughs).

    Ironically, I was taken aback by the wordings naivety back then. The way I expressed my gratitude to Santa Claus, the way I cheated in return of precious gifts from the benevolent figure are amusing. 

     Little did I guess that when I discover the letter 15 years later, I noticed my dad was actually the Santa Claus! Of course, to answer everyone’s question, I got my Christmas gift that year! That was the so-called big-big remote control car with its distinctive red coating.

     And I recalled that was also the greatest gift of my life.

     Growing up, my anticipation for Christmas slowly faded and my interests shifted from the noble fairy-tale to the mysterious cracking Sherlock Holmes stories.

     It is inevitable that we all gravitate towards maturity as we grow older. We explore new things and parted company with old habits. One of the main reasons is that people see things differently and develop heterogeneous beliefs.

     I saw my friends happily attending Christmas parties and celebrations, but I found it hard to sacrifice the popcorn gnawing time in front of the TV at the same time.

     I realized that when we’re so used to the habitual nature of how things used to be, we might feel wee bit uneasy should the dynamics shift.

     It’s pretty normal considering how scared we can be to contemplate things working in the wrong direction. It could be the comfort of the stability in staying unchanged. It could be the fear of losing. It could be lack of motivation or loss of enthusiasm.

     This is where I’m beginning to alter my mindsets to view things differently. Just because we’re getting older day by day, we don’t know what is going to happen in the next moment. Sometimes, most often indeed, life is too short for emotional self-preservation (I’m pointing to myself!)

     I realized that I appreciate socializing much more nowadays than in the past, or I simply become less aloof.

     If I stopped enjoying life then there must be some reasons behind it. If the situation remained unchanged after some time, then probably I might not feel happy anymore.

     The next thing that pops up in my mind was that I should not stay at where I’m being for now. So that’s why I called for a change.

     The word change can stand for several meanings, to be precise. It can be changing for a different living environment because we want to forget about the past. It can be changing your own attitudes and the way you view the world. It can be changing the desires and ambitions.

     Personally. I would like to embrace changes in accordance to all of the criteria listed. Because, that’s the most important step to move forward.

     So I believe I’m in the process of seeing the beauty of life again. Unlike previous years of getting to bed early on Christmas Eve, I’m sure to have great fun with family and friends this time around. No less than Christmas cookies and opulent family dinners, great way to go!

     That’s what we call improvement, right?

     Although my dad will not hide his Christmas present under my bed like he did, I’m feeling blessed for what he did for me over the 22 years. Perhaps I should choose him a nice gift in return for all his graciousness.

     To all the readers of this column, it has been a quiet month in terms of updates for December. To make it clear, I've excluded the entries of other blog posts to make this sole article of the month even more special!

     Readers will be able to catch up some missed topics like The Wedding Diary 1.0, In the Eye of the Beholder, The Transmogrification of Unitrex, The Mother of all Scoundrels, It’s not Easy being Christine and some more in the following months.

     Lastly, I would like to wish every reader of The Happy Fruit to have a wonderful celebration and best of luck! Merry Christmas!

     See you again in 2015!

By: Vincent Ti  J