Tag: Holidays

Christmas and Abundant Dwelling


I slept in and woke up just after 7am this morning. I made coffee and toasts, sat down with Tress, packed lunch from Christmas leftovers, and showered, changed and hopped into the car just after 8am. Tress drove me to the station and I got in just after 8.30. All this was partly made possible because the gym is still closed for the holidays and I had decided not to take any time off work, which feels like a mistake now… sigh…

We were at Uncle Seng’s last night and as always, Auntie Anne had whipped up a fabulous array of delicious food spread across the entire kitchen bench-top of their home in Mount Waverley. Tress’ cousins and other relatives were there.

Earlier that day, we had just stayed home, watched the cricket and pottered about the home. I cleaned out the weber after cooking on it on Christmas Day, and generally just did small stuff, alternating with watching the cricket. England looked like they were determined not to lose – more than a desire to win – so the run rate was a boring 2+ and it was easy to just do other stuff while leaving the cricket on or alternating with other channels. Tress did the same thing, with all sorts of tasks like laundry, taking out bags of trash, letting the little fellow in and out while I got in and out in the course of cleaning the barbie… it was that kind of day.

Christmas Day we had slept in, after a late night on Christmas Eve. Sleeping in these days often means we wake up at 7 instead of 5, so we could have made it to church for the service but we had planned not to, so we just spent the day getting ready for the guests who were coming.

Ing Tung and Chin Moi are some of our oldest friends in Melbourne. While chatting later night with our other guests, it dawned on us it was nearly 30 years ago when we first met. They were very helpful when we first came to Melbourne and continue to be our very dear friends. The Tongs on the other hand, are our newest friends in Melbourne. We only met them maybe 6 months ago, when I was shopping for a new suit in the Doncaster Westfield Myer store. Jason and Mel joined us later that night for drinks and we reminisced even more, as Jason, Ing Tung and I were all with OCF Sydney back in the day – in the mid to late 80’s…

By the time everyone left it was nearly midnight and after we cleaned up it was just past 1am, but it was wonderful to have reconnected with old friends as well as strengthened new bonds.

On Christmas Eve I had left work at noon – the office closed at 12pm – and I dragged Tress and Kiddo to Indian Delight for lunch as I had become really hungry by the time I got home. The midday train was running the city loop – ie Parliament was the first stop, making its way through the loop and left for Blackburn only via Flinders. Stopping every station, it was a long trek home but thankfully the driver put a smile on everyone’s face. He playfully said he wanted to let everyone know the next day was a public holiday and went on to explain the reason for it. He explained the Christian faith in a 1 minute summary – essentially saying Jesus came into the world to save sinners – and wished everyone a wonderful Christmas. I was very happy the driver did what he did and the longer than usual journey home became very pleasant. It didn’t make me less hungry though so to Indian Delight we went and it wasn’t until 8pm that night I did another barbeque. Tress had bought a large piece of barramundi earlier that day.

After a dinner of very juicy fish and fresh salad, we sat down to watch the Sidney Myer music bowl Christmas Carol.

Just after 10.30, we drove to church for the Christmas Eve carol and communion service. The church was packed out and we had to park on the Uniting Church ground across the road on Koonung Road. The focus was pleasantly on Jesus and what He came to do, what our response should be and all that. For a while Tress and Kiddo were worried because as we were walking from the car park we thought we saw people very dressed up but as we settled down at our seats we realised that was only a handful of people. Peter and his staff though were dressed up more than usual and it was very nice to see the extent to which Peter and the church had gone, to make this occasion a pointed and important one. The service ended about 12.40am, and we got home just after 1.

Late nights, lots of food, lots of time with families and people you care for, all surrounding the central theme of Jesus’ coming. One of the numerous readings on Christmas Eve in church was John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The abundance of providence and fellowship is, I’d like to think, very possibly a result of the Word having made a dwelling amongst us. Perhaps…

Related articles

Deo, Dad, Dongzhi and Dread


 

Lots of stuff happens at this time of the year. Today’s my late father’s birthday. He would have been 75. Yesterday was the winter solstice and we were at Gerry and Jesslyn’s for some “Dongzhi”. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. We’d had a few parties already. Events at work too, other than the usual year end rush to complete tasks.

In all of these events one’s attention is spread across different parts of one’s life. What matters most is being with people you care about. After all that’s what started it all in the first place – God wanting to dwell amongst men. Some events you don’t particularly care about but you attend anyway, because otherwise for the rest of the year it become awkward. Like work events. Some events you look forward to because it is with people you care about and you just want to be with them. Some events you brush off with no hesitation because they involve people you don’t particularly want to socialise with.

And so when we got a missed call and a text from someone I can’t particularly care for, I simply responded by asking him to stay away. Just as I have several times now.

Lots of stuff happens at this time of the year. Some are meaningful. Some are curious. As long as I can give the best of my time and effort and it is with people I care about, I work at being with people. It’s not at all a bad time of the year…

Related articles

Emmanuel – or Manuel (as in Fawlty Towers)


Last Sunday we had a pulpit exchange amongst three churches in Blackburn north and a minister from a church on Surrey Road spoke. His mention of this being the silly season rang in my ears this morning as I went in to the office to be greeted by a string of emails flying around.

The rush in the shopping centres at this time of the year which churches like ours have bemoaned is often accompanied by an annoying parallel in the workplace. In a corporation like the one I’m working for, somehow the rush to get stuff signed before Christmas/New Year never goes away. My cynical mind tells me the smoke and mirrors that prop up places like these, require reports to show things have been done. To-do lists and task list need be marked off to evince accomplishment within a specified timeframe – in this case the calendar year is obviously the parameter.

I was asked to work on a document last week and proposed some communications to people affected by that document. I sent that communication to the relevant senior executive late last week (Thursday) and this morning I was asked to provide an update. I said I had not heard back from that senior executive and was asked to remind that person as senior executives are presently distracted by a range of matters now.

Similarly, in a discussion with the boss yesterday, I was told the Board is presently “a bit twitchy” and so there is a need to manage communications more closely.

I can’t say it is the silly season per se which caused all this running around in a sense of near panic at so much to do and so little time to do it in, but I am quite certain it doesn’t alleviate it to say the least. I get the bit about people going away for a few weeks and wanting to ensure as much gets resolved as possible before that. To stress for weeks – often unnecessarily – to make that happen however, almost make the whole thing a bit of a self-created much ado about nothing.

Yesterday I spoke to an external adviser who, after nearly a week of sweating over some advice he provided, came one big circle to land on nearly the same spot. Much ado about nothing has a resonance about it on many occasions in corporate space but at a time like the silly season, when I get to ask “what does this all mean”, it resonated more resoundingly.

It’s one week to Christmas Eve. Emmanuel? We’re too silly in this season with all our busy-ness to make Him welcome, I’m afraid.

Related articles