Celebrating Christmas, the Sarawak way

0

Last Christmas with dad Ong Kee Bian and writer’s family at home – turkey time!

CHRISTMAS, which falls every Dec 25, is probably one of the few festivals that are universally observed and celebrated, as both a sacred religious holiday as well as a cultural and commercial phenomenon.

For over 2,000 years, people all over the world have observed it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature – in churches and cathedrals, large and small, Christians of all denomination commemorate the birth of the baby Jesus of Nazareth at Bethlehem – the Saviour and Lord, by holding midnight masses and early morning services.

Days and weeks before the actual day itself, there’d been huge commercial bonanzas for all businesses ranging from baby toys to children’s gifts and adult devices, appliances and all forms of material valuables as preparations towards the buying and exchanging of gifts are part of this shared annual phenomenon.

Christmas was not always celebrated on Dec 25; history tells us that the birth of Jesus became to be instituted as a holiday starting in the fourth century, and it was believed that it was Pope Julius I who had chosen the date of Dec 25. It was further believed that it was initially known as the ‘Feast of the Nativity’ and had spread from Rome to Egypt by 432 AD, and to England by the end of the sixth century.

I did a Google search and I found out that some 2.3 billion people, just under a third of the world population are Christians, and even though it is not part of every nation’s official holidays, almost half the world participates in Christmas celebrations.

It is an official holiday in more than 160 countries and about 75 per cent of all Europeans celebrate it.

According to the Gallup poll, in 2019, 93 per cent of Americans had celebrated it with the average American spending an average of US$846 (equivalent to RM3,502 in 2019 value) on gifts for Christmas that year.

How do we here, in Sarawak, celebrate Christmas?

For as long as I can remember, my earliest memories certainly must have been from my first year attending school in 1956. I was only 6, my school was St Thomas’ Primary, a missionary Anglican school under the auspices of the Anglican Diocese, and the President of the Board of Governors was the Bishop of Kuching – at that time Bishop Nigel Cornwall.

(Our current Bishop is the Right Reverend Datuk Danald Jute, who is the 14th Bishop since 1855 when the Diocese Act was first enacted).

It was the common ritual and practice that all the school students would have to attend an end-of-school-year church service cum assembly at the St Thomas’ Cathedral, a 200m 10- minute brisk walk from the school compound. This would normally be combined with a pre-Christmas service and hymns and Christmas carols would be sung.

There was always a rather festive atmosphere and overall feel of the closing of yet another school year, usually the completion of school examinations and looking forward with hope to the new year ahead, and usually an anticipated promotion to a higher class and a general sense of having grown older by another year – and perhaps, wiser too?

The school year usually ended with sad partings as it was not always the case that they would be meeting up again with their classmates – during those years, some would be transferred to other schools, some might be moved to different classes or streams the following year, and there were also a few cases of drop-outs or migrations.

We would exchange autographs in the very popular practice of the time – keeping school friends and family autograph books full of photographs and some well-written quotes or well-wishes were very popular in the 1950s/60s, but by the 1970s, it had slowly died out.

I remember fondly those extremely popular acronyms like ‘SWALK’ (Sealed With A Loving Kiss) and the carefully-posed self-portrait photograph together with a home address and phone number culminating in a promise to always stay in touch – more often than not, other than class reunions many years later, would prove unrealistic.

My earliest memory of buying Christmas presents was probably when I was 8 or 9, having saved from my school pocket money just enough to buy simple but well-planned and carefully thought-out Christmas gifts for my parents, siblings and my two favourite spinster aunties.

I remember having gone to a general-sundries shop by the name of ‘Tien Chan’ at Carpenter Street with my brother Edric and sister Edrea, and having pooled our resources to come up with bags-full of interesting Christmas presents.

Our favourite aunty Mary (we nicknamed her Aunt Ong as she was called that by her many ‘fans’ at the Social Welfare Services during those early years) had bought us our very first Christmas tree, made of green plastic, which we had festooned with trinkets and silvery strands of glitter and home-made cut-outs of stars and other symbols and of course, the piece de resistance – a long strand of twinkling multi-coloured neon-lights.

We had also planned our Christmas family dinner with careful thought – from the earliest days we had decided on holding it on Christmas eve, Dec 24, and have stuck to that ever since.

Although our family was Buddhist-Taoist, we had no qualms about celebrating Christmas and Grandpa Ong Kwan Hin had not even objected; in fact, he always joined in the celebration and had found no conflict with his own faith.

By 1985 when my parents had been born-again in Christ and became baptised and confirmed, our Christmas celebrations became more sombre, prayerful and besides continuing the tradition of Christmas dinners, they had attended midnight masses in church and partook in carolling services and in receiving guests at our open house during Christmas day for family and friends.

Dad in the 1980s, with granddaughters Dyan and Claire around the Christmas tree at home.

I remember our very first Christmas turkey – it must have been in 1960; the imported USA Young Turkey was from Ting & Ting’s Supermarket (just newly opened in 1957 by the Ting family of Ting Ming Kheng and another).

Later in the 1970s and 1980s, we added into our list gammon hams and other fanciful named hams. Although Ting & Ting’s Supermarket closed in June 2019, we still source our turkeys from their new business enterprise Supreme Consolidated, a leading cold storage importer – I reckon we’d be roasting our Christmas Turkey #62 come Dec 24, 2022.

Thank you Mike and Roger, for all those turkeys!

Christmas decorating around the house would always be the domain of the youngsters – today it is left to the children and the newer generation.

We have also replaced plastic or synthetic trees with real ones and ornamental decoratives have been replaced by more environmentally-friendly material and other ‘green’ materials.

Christmas presents are now ordered online weeks and even months ahead.

The only last limit rush to the stores and fashion houses happen for those still keen to feel the atmosphere of the ‘seasonal shopping’ and the adrenaline rush of being with the crowd.

‘The Spring’ has replaced Tien Chan at Carpenter Street (they had closed sometime in the 1990s with the death of the proprietor), and celebrating now means having drinks out with friends at the Club, a favourite bistro or a regular bar haunt; and entertainment usually means watching Netflix at home with your loved ones and listening to Christmas albums on Spotify via the home hi-fi system.
The way we celebrate and entertain ourselves have changed in recent years.

The spirit of Christmas has not – it’s still the season for celebrating; for saying to yourself that you have completed a successful year; that you’ve accomplished most of what you had wanted to at the start of the year; and most of all, it reminds us all to be thankful, grateful, appreciative and to thank God for all that he has bestowed and blessed us with the last 12 months as we look forward to a new year with a new promise ahead.

It’s the season for the world – a survival against all odds.

It’s the season for the nation – with a greater hope and renewing the glory of a great Malaysian nation, to our beloved and harmonious state of Sarawak, and most of all to our own family and our loved ones.

May I also take this opportunity to wish you all a very blessed and happy Christmas come Dec 25 – God bless us all.