Ghosts of Christmas Past

Many Christmases ago, Casey grabbed his hard-earned car washing/ soccer coaching money and went to Kennedy Town. Alone. Even though us older girls were constantly having these unintelligible conversations with dramatic "Guess what happened?" "Oh my goodness," and "Uh huh," which left him completely confused, he decided that he wanted to surprise his older sisters with something extra special under the tree.

That year, like most years, we woke up early and dashed to the tree to divvy up the presents. Chelsea and I both opened Casey's present at the same time. He stopped his unwrapping and just watched us with the biggest grin on his face.

Wow. It was a fur ball masquerading as a lady's purse. It looked alive. And it seemed like something that a storekeeper could convince a little boy to hand over quite a bit of money for.

We did our sisterly duty and got ourselves super excited. We posed with the creatures slung across our chests. We gushed about them to Casey and messed up his hair affectionately.

Then we ran to our rooms and laughed about it. Casey was the cutest. But these little purses needed to be hid. Fast. So we buried them underneath our old stockings and pajama dresses and forgot all about them.

Another year went by. Christmas rolled around again.

Chelsea and I found ourselves opening another big surprise from Casey.

This time, it was a fur ball hat.

You know, to go with our favorite purses.

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It's officially Christmas over here! I just got done wrapping the presents for the kids. They're all in bed already. I'm also temping as Santa this year. Let's just say that I'm delivering the goodies and the coal. Got to teach kids about taking consequences right?

The Story That Didn't Make It Here

I was going to tell you a story of a battle with my mom where I had fought hard, ultimately won, and constantly regretted.

But instead, I'm going to squirrel that story away and stay up late this Christmas weekend so I can spend hours figuring out how to do justice to some hazy adolescent memory. And that will definitely be one for the private blog or future boyfriend.

One thing I will tell you is this: I think I found it tonight when I was gingerly dipping my toes (with Santa red polish) into the bath. For some reason, it finally hit me - why I had always tried to do everything Sisi-possible to try to make my parents proud (and still felt lacking) even when I had known all along that they were already proud of me simply because I was their daughter.

Too bad that there is already a Jung Chang, an Amy Tan, and now an Amy Chua*. I can definitely write volumes on Chinese American mother-daughter dynamics and spin stories so that readers will believe that I am simply 'principled' and not stubborn.

Well I guess that's what blogs are for.

* Chinese American authors who wrote about their relationships with their mothers and left children like me obsessed with how much my childhood resembled 20% of character X, 35% of Y, and 45% of Z.

A Little LBD Magic

Fashion magazines swear by the rule that every girl needs a LBD (little black dress). I have one, but mine isn't black. The body of my dress is made of fuchsia thai silk and rimmed with a black trim. It's high collared, mid-sleeved, sewn onto me until it hits my waist and then spreads itself out into a flowing A-line. It makes me feel a little bit like Audrey Hepburn with a dash of Julie Andrews.

In the two years since I got it made, I've only worn it three times. I zipped it on the first time when I had to run a new members recognition ceremony as the president of the BYU Golden Key Honour Society. I was juggling econometrics, two jobs, and an upcoming thesis deadline that semester. So when I found out that my speech was erased from my computer in the TA office 20 minutes before the ceremony started, I just lost it. But crying took too much effort with that fitted bust. So I wiped my eyes and winged it. Later, a few people came up to me and told me that they got a little teary-eyed when I spoke. I thanked them and credited the dress.

The second time that dress made it out of my closet was the day after a very long night's fight with an ex- boyfriend. I saw him at church. He saw the dress. When I walked past him to leave the room, he pulled me in and told me that I looked nice.

We had a long talk that afternoon and got back together.

Last week, when I was exhausted, a little emotionally fried, and unreasonably nervous for the translation that I had to do for my boss at an HR conference, I pulled out that dress again. It worked. Things just went well. That day, the COO approached me and told me he thought it was time to discuss promotional opportunities. I felt like a million bucks. Well, okay, just a million yuan. But hey, at least the exchange rate from my side of the world was looking better every day.

And the HR conference I was so worried about? No problem. It was super chilled, with raunchy dances and an amateur magic show where I got to be the lovely assistant for a small moment. Oh and Chinese men with hairless legs who were dressed up in tutus for laughs. I'm telling you - it was all the dress.