I’m often asked, “Do you celebrate Christmas over there in Borneo?”

The official answer is “Yes, we do.” Muslim-majority Malaysia has a substantial Christian population, and December 25th is a public holiday marked with several national and state-level celebrations.

The unofficial answer is “Yes, of course!” because Sabahans get together at the drop of a hat. Any hat. Births, birthdays, weddings, deaths (the wake, the funeral, the graveside watches and the gatherings at seven, forty and one hundred days), cultural and religious festivals, and commonplace revels like the-time-aunty-upset-her-niece-and-had-to-slaughter-a-pig-and-throw-a-party-to-soothe-the-bad-blood.

This well-oiled party machinery swings into action at the first hint of An Event.

I did not learn this until my second Christmas in Sabah.* My husband and I lived in a workers’ longhouse in an acacia forest beside a wild beach, part of a team building a public aquarium. Our coworkers were so fun to hang out with that I had the great idea of inviting them to a Christmas dinner (roast chicken, roast potatoes, rice, salad and cookies**). I asked eight if they’d like to come.

“We’d be delighted,” they said.

Oh goody! Time to get roasting a chicken… though I did wonder why my husband cooked a ton of rice. Then our guests turned up. With co-partygoers. Forty co-partygoers, sprawling across our longhouse balcony to watch the sun set over the South China Sea. In planning for eight, I had not yet grasped the mathematics of Sabahan parties.

“This is good,” my husband said with a grin. “Ramai–ramai!”***

I should have panicked, but Sabahans have such an innate gracious competence that it all felt manageable. The machinery swung into action as they sorted out seating, manufactured leaf plates, apportioned the chicken, quartered the potatoes and cooked yet more rice. They complimented the cookies and asked questions about salad. My husband, ever the village jester, handled the entertainment and soon had everyone roaring with laughter.

“Good thing I spread the word,” Rose the Gardener later confided in me. “Otherwise this would have been such a tragic affair.”

*My first Christmas was spent at an uncle’s party in blissfully inebriated oblivion.

**All roasting was done in what we like to call a tractor oven, which is an aluminium box balanced on a gas ring. It has two settings: tepid and inferno.

***Ramai is the word used for “lots of” when referring to people. As in, “ramai people came to my party”. It is an entirely positive word because, to a Sabahan, having lots of people is always a good thing: more fun, more chances of seeing old friends and making new friends, and more likely to have skills and labour on standby to handle any emergency.