Tales of love, peace and hope

The Sunday Times invites five authors to pen short stories around the theme of A Christmas Gift

- Prasanthi Ram

The woman avoided going to town. Giant artificial fir trees decorated with glittering baubles and lights. Festive markets teeming with eager crowds. Old carols sung by celestial choirs on streets. Wafts of freshly baked cookies along underpasses. Bulbous bags of gifts on the arms of frantic last-minute shoppers.

Under normal circumstances, she would have soaked in the merriment. The same way her childhood dog, a sweet Singapore Special, rolled wildly in fields that were just rained on.

Christmas always brought with it the jolliest chaos, her father would say. When she was younger, she would fight with her mother to ride shotgun as her family drove their rickety rented car through the country's most famous road. It was the only time they got to play tourist.

This year though, she made an unprecedented decision. To stay home. It was her first ever home-cation from the eve of Christmas Eve till Boxing Day and she was determined to treat it like any other day off from work. No festivities, no celebrations, just the usual.

The pandemic lockdowns had trained her enough that she knew what to do with herself during this time. Or at least what not to. She had been overseas for a while then, in a sleepy English suburb where it got so quiet that it became deafening; that was when she learnt to keep the television on at all times, even through the night.