“That’s it for another year,” is what my father used to say every Christmas night. With still another 10 days of school holiday and Boxing Day and New Year to come, this really annoyed his teenage daughter! But this is the way I feel now, in Kathmandu, in mid-December: that’s it for another year.  Christmas Day has not even begun, but for expats who do not have family here, after the Christmas bazaars, Christmas lunches, and the rounds of the embassy events and parties, we find the Christmas spirit waning. Those who are heading to their home country or to warmer holiday spots such as Goa or Thailand leave well before the day itself. 

Christmas in Kathmandu has become a copy and paste of another culture onto the local calendar

So yes, that’s it for another year. Looking back, I’ve had a variety of Christmases in my 28 years in Asia. My very first (and most vivid) was here in Kathmandu. On Christmas Eve I made my way to Mikes Breakfast, run by the late Mike Warren Frame. At that time it was located near the Yak and Yeti Hotel, and Mike then was young and slim, and very welcoming. He ensured all single guests were sat with others so that no one was alone that Christmas Eve. After dinner I took a rickshaw back into Thamel. It was very foggy and, wrapped in a large blanket of a shawl, the journey was extremely atmospheric, dreamlike and yes, Christmassy. There was no traffic as the rickshaw moved silently through the fog on the evening on December 24, 1990.

The following Christmas found me in Hong Kong where I spent perhaps my loneliest one, sitting on Victoria Peak looking down on Victoria Harbor, a my small box of chocolates being the only concession to Christmas. Moving on a couple of years, I once celebrated Christmas in November! I was living in Singapore and my mother came to visit me. My very obliging house-mate put up a Christmas tree and cooked a chicken dinner so that my mother and I could enjoy Christmas together, in Singapore, in the heat, in November.

Fast forward… I enjoyed celebrating Christmas for several years in the far-west of  Nepal, where again the weather would obligingly provide fog to create a white Christmas-like mood, and the oxen and goats next door could almost (almost) be construed as a nativity. Moving to Kathmandu in 2000, Christmas was shaped depending on which friends were in town, as friends came and went, as expats tend to do. For five or six years we celebrated around the open fire at Kilroys Restaurant, until the expat owner left. I’ve sampled a few Christmas Day buffets at the Yak and Yeti Hotel. I’ve even spend a Christmas or two on my own, but they were never as hard as that Christmas in Hong Kong.  One of my favorite Christmases was driving up to Nagarkot with a friend for breakfast. There was such a feeling of indulgence going there just for a couple of hours to stare at the mountains over hot tea!

Over the years the Christmas vibe has grown in Kathmandu among the local crowd. But this is merely a copy and paste of another culture onto the local calendar. Not that there is anything wrong in that; it is just not the way I have celebrated or perceive Christmas. As a teenager, I loved going to the midnight service on Christmas Eve where the congregation would fall silent to listen to the church bells strike midnight. This took place after the disco in the church hall next door spat out happy, sober, yet excited, youngsters. Paying money to get into a bar in Thamel (normally free) just because it is Christmas does not give the same warm glow!

So here we are, a few days before Christmas, and yes, for me, it’s all over for another year.