Top Five Things I'll Try To Avoid Next Christmas

Not one of the jollier Christmases I've ever had; but perhaps I can learn from the experience....

The Top Five Things I'll Try To Avoid Next Christmas

5)  Forgetting my host's address

This shouldn't be a disastrous oversight.  After all, even if you have the address (and a map.... and some kind of hi-tech homing device...) you're still not going to find a Beijing apartment the first time you visit it.  You do kind of rely on being able to contact the host - or someone - by telephone, to be guided in the last little bit of the way.  I almost baled on my Christmas lunch because no-one was answering their phone as I neared the venue.  (I was literally on the point of giving up and going home, when I happened to bump into the host making a run to his nearest supermarket.)

4)  Arriving too early

Well, I arrived when I'd been told to.  But almost no-one else showed up for another two or three hours.  At least I got to try to keep the peace between my two neurotically squabbling co-hosts....

3)  Too many strangers

The group ended up being just a little too large for comfort, I felt.  And, at the risk of sounding what might seem a vaguely racist note, there were perhaps rather too many Chinese folks involved; to try to save myself from that charge, I might modify it by saying there were too many non-Brits involved.  This was essentially a Brit party, and Christmas is all about the nostalgia of shared experience: if Americans and Aussies don't get the British Christmas, then the Chinese certainly won't.  And having too many people around who don't have a clue what's going on does tend to leech away the energy of the occasion.  It didn't help either that so many of our company were journalists: I love journalists, and many of my best friends are in that profession, but... they do tend to take their work home with them; and they do tend to get very regularly screwed by the Chinese authorities' not-so-furtive attempts to 'bury bad news' over the Western holidays (last year it was Liu Xiaobo's sentencing on Christmas Day; this year, the announcement of another interest rate hike by the Bank of China).  No, having so many people arrive late and/or leave early - and wear distracted frowns while they were there - didn't conduce well to jollity either.

2)  Nemesis

Well, I suppose the point of a Nemesis is that you can't avoid it/him/her.  My particular Nemesis has insinuated herself into my life so comprehensively - living in my part of town, frequenting my favourite bars, making a point of trying to be friends with all of my friends - that there is no getting away from her.  God knows who 'invited' her this time!  I rather suspect she just got wind of the party and invited herself; that is the thing that most exasperates me about her.  I suppose I should be grateful she only turned up in the evening....

Ah, but these are all fairly trivial pieces of social observation.  It wasn't such a bad day at all, really (excellent food!). It's just that I wasn't in much of a state to enjoy a party myself.....

1)  Ill health, depression, lack of sleep

I'd had an utterly wretched week, and then spent most of Friday night puking bile down my wash-handbasin... so, I was setting out for Christmas lunch on about 3 hours sleep, with very little appetite and a powerful aversion to the idea of drinking (I stuck to local beers most of the day, and that only because the host was short of drinking water).  The main lesson I take from this year's less-than-optimal experience is: Don't go out if you're feeling that ill.

I think that's going to be my last Christmas in Beijing anyway; so, 'lessons learned' may not have much applicability next year.  Just venting, really (as usual!).

I hope you guys out there had more FUN than I did over this last weekend.