WE are no good at setting up Christmas trees.
The decorations are haphazard. Our fairy lights are numerous and flicker erratically.

'Wah, your lights are enough to set off epileptic fits,' said a friend, blinking.

But the tree is for our kids, who like the twinkling tinsels and bright lights and look forward to the ritual of putting presents underneath it.

I tell them that this is the time we remember Jesus and His birth.

But what do the kids remember of Christmas? Presents, toys, candy canes and cookies.

I try to shield them as much as I can.

I take them out only during the weekends. We don't watch television programmes - just DVDs which have their mum's seal of approval.

I stock the house with as few items of processed food as possible and help them avoid junk food.

One day, as we were visiting a friend's house for a meal, the chidren were offered pizza. My daughter, 5, said virtuously (and loudly): 'But pizza is not healthy food, right?'

All the adults laughed. 'I see mummy has been brainwashing the kids!' one father said.

'A little bit of pizza is okay,' I told my puzzled daughter.

Compromise is insidious. If you compromise once, how do you make a stand for anything else?

'Mummy, why does Barney say some families only have a mummy? Where is the daddy? And do some kids have two daddies?' asked my 3-year-old son one day.

'Does he say that? Haha, maybe he is making a joke!' I said, laughing nervously.

'What is a joke?' he asked.

A FAMILY IS LOVE

I watched the episode with him.

There was a song about the different kinds of families - divorced, single and some with no parents at all, just grandparents.

'A family is people and a family is love. We're a family,' went the song, and I couldn't agree more.

After all, my mother is divorced (twice), and my three siblings and I come from three different families but we are all close. I know first-hand the importance of love over form when it comes to families.

So, I have no problems at all with using an Americanism, 'Hey, no judgment, man!' for all kinds of families.

I'm not on any moral high horse. But I am not sure how I want to explain this to my kids.

They do not even have a concept about marriage yet.

One day, Minh, my daughter, asked me why I married her father.

I told her: 'Because he is the man I love. One day, you will marry the boy you love too.'

'Do I have to marry Yung?' she asked shyly, speaking of her brother.

'No!' I hollered.

'Aiyoh,' said the Significant Other, shaking his head. 'Don't talk to her about these things yet.'

But the world comes in a lump - how can I tell the children about it in bits and pieces?

Mum loves dad. But some mums don't love daddies. Still, pizza is unhealthy food.

Teaching kids values means helping them see the world in right and wrongs.

How do I tell her whether divorce is right or wrong? Do I make a stand on what I believe to be the right thing? ('Mums and dads should always stay together.')

Or do I teach her to be ambivalent and say 'Hey, no judgment, man!'

I stared at my Christmas tree, deep in thought. Then I blinked.

I will teach her what I believe is right.

She will make up her own mind over time, whether I like it or not. She will grow up and I should let her.

What I can do is to have a Christmas tree waiting for her each year - although perhaps I should change the lights.