After requesting faithful HK readers to send me their Hong Kong Christmas Traditions (with a capital T), the responses I received felt a little bit paltry. Maybe Hong Kong’s holiday fate is the same as other cities—with elevator music, girls in elf outfits handing out fliers, and 20 percent off sales at Louis Vuitton. This is OK though. There’s some nice stuff at LV.
I also got a number of excellent marketing materials that put me in the holiday spirit. First, “The Hong Kong Game Club 2009 X’mas BBQ Buffet Freezout Tourney, Private & Invitational Only.” Yes, what better way to let the ones you love know you care about them over the holidays than poker and such wonderful Christmas dishes as Japanese fried rice and Singapore vermicelli. There was also a holiday Belvedere vodka party, a shoe launch party, and special holiday rates at the City of Dreams. Actually, the most Christmasy thing I got was a notification that Santa was following me on Twitter, though—on closer inspection—it turned out to be a girl named Sana. No worries though. Thank you, Sana. I will post good Christmas tweets telling you all about Lacoste’s holiday sale on shirts.
However, happy hokey holiday materialism IS also what Christmas is all about and has been for as long as I can remember. I write this both because 1) I believe it and 2) I wanted to write a sentence starting with four Hs. Like George W. Bush once said, “Mission accomplished.” So readers, we may not have succeeded in creating new Hong Kong Christmas Traditions together (to date) but we have reinforced our old habits without any justification besides “we’ve always done it this way.” And that, I believe, is the exact definition of the word “tradition.” So have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Kwanzaa, and everything in-between, and I hope you get those fabulous Louboutins you’ve been wishing for.