Red is the colour of the season, but for my little boy and me, the colour pink has brought joy this Christmas! I loved playing with dolls when I was little, but grew up hating the colour pink. Like many other girls, every other piece of toy or clothing I was gifted when I was little was pink. My mom continued to gift me pink even after I turned 30. “Oh, you look so pretty in pink,” she would go when I would often complain “why do you always buy me pink?” But I could never see the prettiness in pink until my little boy developed a love for the colour.

It all started when he wanted to wear the pink hairband of his closest friend. He was more excited to ride the bright pink cycle gifted accidentally on his 3rd birthday than the red one we bought. And then we read the book The Day the Crayons Quit, in which the social notion that pink is for girls was happily broken.

From that day onwards it was pink all over for him. He wanted to colour everything pink, including the squares of a chessboard and the flag of Japan. He wanted to buy everything pink, from souvenir dolls to water bottles and toothpastes. And when he refused to wear a sweater early morning, he happily wore a pink one. And just like that, I started seeing prettiness in pink.

I made my son and his boyfriends colour their favourite objects in pink on a playdate. In the park, we started collecting beautiful pink flowers that had fallen from the Kachnar trees with heart-shaped leaves. When I asked my little one to come up with a list of things that brought joy to him over this past year, clearly the colour pink won the most hearts. So, this Christmas, to celebrate our love for pink and to keep the joyful spirit of the season, we decided to decorate our tree by making his favourite objects, from aeroplanes to strawberries and zeros, in pink besides other colours. And brought home a pink poinsettia to put under our tree to bring more joy to our hearts.