Christmas with Grandfather

I come from a very big family with 13 aunts and 6 uncles. When I was a child, my own family never had a Christmas tree, and we had to go to Grandfather's house or the Church to see one. 

I cannot remember now who had trees then, but I now remember that at that time my father's friend, Councillor Ting had a tree, and he served durians at Christmas.

My grand aunty or Goo Poh had a lovely tree too and she lived in the big Methodist 50th Anniversary Building at Island Road.

When my grandfather was still alive, the whole clan would meet up for Sunday tea and especially for  Christmas . Grandfather loved to have his sons and daughters visit. And of course he did not mind his noisy grandchildren.

This looks like the old Christmas tree at Grandfather's house, and at the various Methodist Churches in Sibu in the 50's. (Photo from Google)

I remember some of the Christmases I visited Grandfather . One week before the Christmas when I first saw a Christmas tree I was mesmerized by the glittering tinsels and the lovely crepe paper trimmings. My aunts cut the crepe paper streamers and made the living room nice. Most of the decorations were red, and there were a lot of silver trimmings.

All of us had new dresses to wear because Grandfather loved to see us in new clothes for Christmas and the Chinese New Year. So Grandma Siew and our aunts were busy sewing too at the end of the year. Most of the time we kids had hand me downs from our cousins in Singapore.

My Grandfather's Christmas Tree with my aunts, uncle, and cousin.

And I was very impressed by my grandfather who started to hang the nice bells on the tree. He then put the small tree on the wooden table and my aunts continued to decorate the tree with lovely baubles, and some other items. I was scared to touch them because they told me that they were costly and they would break into thousands of pieces because they were made of glass.

In the mind of a young child, a Christmas tree was the loveliest invention in the whole wide world. Every decoration was beyond my dream. 

And it was wonderful of my grandfather to welcome carollers to the house at night. I tried to stay awake as truly the carollers came at Midnight to sing like angels from Heaven. And I particularly remember Rev Ho Siew Liong making a great effort to preach a short sermon for my grandfather and the family about the coming of Jesus, all in Foochow!!

Those shiny baubles created a great deal of imagination for me. It was more than 20 years later when I had my own Christmas tree.