With no intention of offending Christians, as a first-generation Chinese-Canadian and an agnostic, Christmas in my childhood was stripped of all mystery right from the get-go. My parents told me and my siblings quite matter-of-factly there was no Santa Claus and they probably would've said there was no Christ or God either if it had occurred to them.

We got money presents in red envelopes, had a tinsel tree with fairly gaudy ornaments, and ate rice and a turkey cooked Chinesestyle and butchered into chopstickready pieces on Christmas Eve. As an imaginative little girl, it was up to me to create my own Christmas explanations, feelings and traditions. So Christmas became about the cartoons.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas early on became my comfort and joy during the holidays. I didn't get wrapped presents, and it was comforting to me when the Whos didn't let the Grinch get them down either when their presents were filched.

I still feel the sentiment when all the Whos come together in the town square, link hands and sing of love and togetherness at the end. Christmas, I learned, was not about boasting about heaps of presents, but about being warm and cosy with your brothers and sisters on either side of you on the couch and feeling happy and safe with your family.

A Charlie Brown Christmas practically makes my own kids cross when they watch it. The pace of the story is too slow for them and they don't appreciate what a hero Charlie Brown is for taking sympathy on the smallest, worst tree in the lot and bringing it home. As a matter of fact, they don't even like Charlie Brown and the whole Peanuts gang.

Since I was an almost-immigrant with embarrassing parents, I could sympathize with what a misfit poor Charlie Brown was. I liked that that boy, who was so vulnerable to bullying and being made fun of could nonetheless find the compassion to like and befriend something more vulnerable than himself. Christmas, I learned, became not about being the shiniest and the best (or the "coolest" kid, in other words) but about looking for intrinsic worth in yourself and others.

Finally, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was my lesson in believing in yourself and your own talents. And knowing what true friends are made of (not those turncoat reindeer who let Rudolph into their reindeer games only after Santa approved of him).

I did not ever have the kind of Christmas my husband and I have provided for our own kids, but we have the same cartoons. My kids know we have to watch The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer and maybe a few others when they turn up annually on TV. They may groan now that they're such cool teenagers, but they'll still sit down and watch these old cartoons with me.

Because it's Mom's Christmas.

Susie Mah is President of the Fanshawe Adult Social Club, which will continue next term under new leadership! Email Susie at ascfanshawe@hotmail.com to be put on our email list for events.