Filed under: Festive Cheers
When the Lunar New Year approaches, there’s loads to do (especially when you don’t have a maid):
1. Spring clean the house
For the tenth time, I question the rationale behind spring-cleaning the apartment/house a week before CNY. Why do we only take down those curtains, remove ’em sofa covers, pack the storeroom, empty out the cupboards and throw away 20 plastic bags worth of rubbish at this time every year? Does CNY warrant no-excuses to finally get down to tidying our nests before it becomes an obvious disarray, living evidence that the house has been lived in for two decades and counting?
This year, I play Treasure Hunt with my mum when she tells me to help pack the cupboards, mop the ceiling, shove junk into the storeroom, pack my table (full of HER things).
“Ah girl! Where are the cardboard boxes?”
“Find it yourself!”
“Where??? I ask you to put in the storeroom!”
“You got it!”
“But where? I don’t see it!”
“Look harderrrrrr”
“Where???????”
silence.
I also realised how age has caught up with both of us. 10 years ago when I was 14, she was hollering at me to throw/give away stuff that I do not need, but at that point in time, I figured I’ll need that in the near future, maybe when I move out of my grandparents’ place, when I grow up….the list goes on. Now 10 years later when I’m rapidly approaching 24, it was a 180 degree turnaround. I move around the house with a single aim to throw whatever does not work anymore (for a start) which involved a teppanyaki/grill set which short circuited the entire place the last time the man and I tried to do some grill-your-own-dinner thing. My mum hollered, “Oh come on! Keep it, don’t throw it away!”
“But it doesn’t work anymore! Keep the pans if you want”
“Awww just keep it!”
“For what!?”
“Aiyar you never know if it will work again right?”
silence.
2. Buy CNY goodies
CNY lasts 15 days, and we’re expected to have boxes of love letters, pineapple tarts, peanut candies, shrimp rolls and bak kwa lying around for two of us to finish? I’m bound to gain 8kg by the time I’m done with them, complete with sore throat, fever and everything else that comes along from indulging in CNY goodies. A raid through my fridge led me to a disgusting find of last year’s pineapple tarts (which still look and smell edible but I’m not taking any risks) – just by the way.
3. Shop for new clothes
Of course I’ll never say no to shopping with such great sales now (apparently it seems like we’re going to spend our way out of the recession), but when there’s no time to shop? Throw on a set of apparel that does not look (a) faded, (b) torn…so long your relatives have not seen it before. How often do they see me anyway?
4. Go to NTUC to buy one week’s worth of groceries
Erm, not like the shops are gonna be closed for one week like they do in China.
I might just change my mind about the above after a walk through Chinatown next weekend. Well, you never know!
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