An International Christmas

Christmas is once again just around the corner and to me and every other regular person on this planet, who goes out for a walk or who watches a bit of the television, it is blatantly obvious! Even in Taiwan, were X-mass was but a few years ago a strange ritual that the 'white devils' participated reverently in, Santa Claus and his merry reindeer are becoming permanent features in daily life (although some families have confused x-mass decorations with just plain old decorations and various coffee shops and residential houses have trees and flashing lights all year round)!

Most x-mass celebrants, the world over, associate X-mass with snow, apart that is from Australians, who continue to crack open cans of foster and have barbecues just like any other day of the year! In Brazil Papai Noel does his rounds wearing a lovely ensemble of silk due to the summer heat! Japan and Korea go for the snow and sometimes it does fall, although in Korea it sometimes resembles hailstones, but in Taiwan were snow has yet to fall properly, plastic snowmen abound. The Taiwanese emphasize X-mass with snow as if the two are inseparable and so shops and department stores eagerly decorate their spaces with snowmen and false snow and they turn down their air-conditioning units in some weird attempt to create the right atmosphere!

Meanwhile, over in Singapore were the temperatures never vary from an average 30 degrees all year round keen enthusiasts attend Ice Bars in an attempt to fully create the perfect atmosphere. One Ice Bar is located behind Boat Quay and near to the Irish Bar. Having just had a few pints of Guinness, feeling suitably warm with the effects of the night heat and the alcohol coursing through the veins, what could be better than entering a freezer? And this is what the Ice Bar is, underneath the gloss and the glamour! It is a large room, filled with chairs and tables and with all the usual drinks, just like any other bar around the world, except that the temperature inside has been forcibly reduced to below zero. The bar has weirdly proved quite popular and is frequently attended by Singaporeans, all who have gone as far as to purchase Arctic Jackets and Thermal Underwear so that they may attend without getting frostbite. In equal proportions pissed Scotsmen and bemused Canadians attend in T-shirts and wonder what all the fuss is about! At Christmas though the profits at this bar quadruple as the christmas spirit is spent - and it actually looks like a white X-mass in the thirty foot square walk-in-freezer. A spot of white x-mass that only 0.01% of the Singaporean population can attend, due to the requirements of space!

On the Internet X-mass is becoming a windfall for spammers! The 25th december is the time for placing Christmassy sort of words into spam emails in the hope that those receiving them will assume that Santa is in fact real and mommy and pappa were lying after all. And just a click away is the opportunity to book a flight to Lapland to see dear Santa and his wife at home, getting ready for the big day (Rudolph though is sleeping)!

This is Lapland, the spellbound, un-spoilt region in the north of Finland, so beautiful that Father Christmas chose it as his home. Costs approximately 799 pounds for a one-night stay departing on 21ststDecember. NB: that after this date Santa is too busy delivering presents to be able to entertain guests.

Once upon a time many children used to leave little notes on window sills and on mantelpieces, a belief forced on them by parents that Santa would be along soon. But as technology advances so does the ways and means to communicate with Father Christmas and Santa Claus.com offers the following feature:

HO!! Ho!! ho!! Write a letter to Santa Claus? Yes kids its true! Just finish this letter... Santa's waiting for *you*! From the North Pole, Santa will send your reply... faster than Rudolph the reindeer can fly!! Merry Christmas!

Please don't feel neglected if you have no access to a computer, Santa still accepts mail through the old-style postal system. In fact Children continue to write to Santa from all over the world and in a little city located on the Artic Circle in Lapland a Post Office, appropriately named the Santa Claus Main Post Office receives some 300,000 letters annually. The rush usually occurs at X-mass time (slightly alleviated by some confused Australians who feel they should send their X-mass wishes during their winter) so make sure to send letters early so that will arrive before X-mass and not afterwards. By simply addressing envelopes to Santa Claus, Babbo Natale (Italian), Weichnachtsmann (Germany), �誕�人 {sing daan lou jan} (Taiwan) or to Pere Noel (France) with the address of Father Christmas Street, Lapland or to "were Santa Claus Lives" all mail arrives faithfully and unread. It is also quite possible should the return address and senders name be legible that a reply will be sent from some busy elf, minus of course the large wish list made up of toys and games (cars and a new spouse for some adults who still believe in it all).

Wherever a person comes from, Christmas comes faithfully every year! It brings presents of no small size, of food in large and rich quantities and it comes with fanfare, bright and late nights and lots of happy memories until the New Year brings in its own spirits to replace those of a week gone by. As children still believe that Santa is really going to give them what they want, and as shop owners and retailers revel in increased sales; as reverends and fanatics increasingly attempt to revive the spirit of religion into the holiday season (even though its now well known that X-mass was never really about christ after-all) and as non-believers increasingly attempt to do the opposite, Christmas is a time for families to be together, for loved ones to meet and anywhere except in Brazil, fires to be lighted and for the warmth to seep in (Australians light a fire for the barbecue, the a tin of fosters provides the warmth).

The true spirit of X-mass was invoked during those terrible years of World War One when Tommy and Fritz laid down arms to play football in no-mans land on Christmas Day. A little-known Scottish poet, Frederick Niven, summed up the true essence of X-mass in his "A Carol from Flanders," with the final verse of;

O ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day.