December

We’re here again in December, in the final pages of 2005. The month that’s a whirlpool of activities and like a whirlpool it sucks you in and, before you know it, spits you out naked and unprepared into a brand new year. Cruel, but every year you’ll unfailingly yearn for the month to come as you hope to taste again the magic and ecstasy that only December can bring.

Can’t put a finger to it? Look no further than the back-to-back celebrations (Christmas and New Year), the global dressing-up with ornamented pine trees and loads of flashing coloured lights, the cold wet nights and equally cool mornings, the sudden compulsion to hand out presents (only matched by the expectations of brightly-wrapped presents of your own), the year-end seasonal sales and exuberant shoppers that throng the malls, choirs belting out songs after songs about White Christmases under occasional tropical showers, the massive street parties to usher in the first day of a new calendar and the quiet reflection on the past year followed by a determined endeavour (crossing fingers) to achieve those daunting resolutions.

It’s the time of the year again and I’m not complaining.