Tag Archives: Christmas

Merry Christmas

25 Dec

I don’t normally post on a Sunday but since it’s a special festive occasion, I decided to… Merry Christmas people! 

This Christmas we decided to travel instead of staying home like we always do, year in year out and we are definitely looking forward to it. 

Last night’s family Christmas Eve dinner was sumptuous and satisfying because everything on the table (save for the drinks) was homemade – from the turkey right down to the cranberry sauce and everything in between. Everyone contributed and was very good.

Still feeling full from the dinner, we are flying off to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam this afternoon! The girls are excited, hubby’s looking forward to the break and I am eager to take them to the places that I visited six months ago when I was there for golf.

A much deserved break and time together for the family.

   
 

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Countdown Begins!

6 Dec

It’s exciting knowing that a week from today, our firstborn will be home for the Christmas holidays! We can’t wait. One more week to go…

It’s occasions like these that I want to will time to hurry up. Other days, I wish time would slow down for me to enjoy the children. They grow up so fast and too fast.

M1 is finishing her sophomore year at university. How quickly time has gone by. Somehow it feels like it was only just yesterday that we sent her off and now, she will be back for her second Christmas break! This year, she will fly directly into KLIA, unlike last year where we drove down to Singapore for her.

Ooooohhh… Can’t wait.

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Svetlana’s Got Company, Part 2

8 Jan

It was the Christmas Eve morning and I happened to observe the two parrot babies again and something was definitely not right! They didn’t look normal and had this shedding look, like a snake changing its skin. Oh no!

On closer inspection, they were indeed bullied. And traumatized. Hubby said the shedding were signs of defence under a threatened situation. On top of this, there were some missing scales on their body and fear in the eyes. Svetlana!

We had no choice but to move them to the pond to join the big boys and Svetlana’s moment of company was short lived. Within a few minutes, their little bodies were back to its normal color and without the shedding look. But several hours later, one of them did not live to see Christmas because it was traumatized beyond therapy. Sniffle. Poor thing.

Looks like the surviving one may have to do the community living with the others if we want it to stay alive and up until now, I must say it is doing very well. Thank goodness.

Svetlana rules her little aquarium yet again. And alone.

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Too Much Happening

28 Dec

It was an intense two weeks with M1 back; there was so much eating and traveling. And suddenly, it’s all over. She left for the States yesterday night via Changi Airport, Singapore. Although there was an hour delay from KLIA2, the 5 hour buffer is sufficient for her to catch her connecting this morning, unlike her 50-minute gap the other day. 

That one, all legs of the flight were delayed (from the US-inbound to outbound) and she had 10-minutes to run to the gate at Narita. But thankfully, it worked out fine then.

By the time this gets posted, she would have flown only a few minutes to Narita International and a long way more to go.

Yes, I am tracking her flight on flightaware.com. And it was a restless night in between anxiety and fits of cough. It will be a restless next 24 hours until I know she’s arrived safely. Unfortunately, it has been several restless nights for me with this awful infection that I am having that has caused me to lose my voice.

I thought my record of getting laryngitis would be broken this year (three years in a row I had it) but no, it struck the week after we returned from Penang. So now, I am into my second week of this suffering. The inflammation in the throat has gone but so has the voice!

I guess it didn’t help that during the Christmas Eve dinner, I bravely downed red wine, white wine, coffee and whiskey. I didn’t overeat, I just drank a variety of drinks. I thought heck, why not? Alcohol kills germs. Plus, we were celebrating a happy occasion and let’s be merry about it!

Then on Christmas night, we went for steamboat, to complete M1’s ‘to eat’ list. Golly, by Boxing Day, I was rendered speechless. I am not even hoarse, just totally speechless. It takes a lot of energy to muster up even a tiny bit of strength to speak and even then, I cannot be heard by all three of them. (Silent sigh)…

So when M1 left, whatever that has to be said has been spoken (thankfully much earlier before my illness struck); whatever else that still needs to be spoken was left unspoken as a result of my inability. It’s tiring to aggravate the vocals.

Maybe less words spoken at this juncture is better. It was a quick emotional goodbye, a hug and again, some tears and she went through the gate. Hubby and M2 held up much better.

Unlike her first time leaving home in March, this time I take relief in knowing she’s going off to university as a Sophomore and being more exposed, I shouldn’t worry too much and should focus on getting my voice back. It has been too intense for me. 

(Silent sigh)…

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What a Feast!

25 Dec

Merry Christmas! The pictures say it all; the Christmas spread was all homemade-save for the two cold cuts-and prepared with love. Pre-dinner was red wine with salami and chocolates. 

For dinner, we had the traditional turkey, mash potatoes with bacon bits, salad, dinner rolls and a cake and lots of wine. And after dinner, out came the coffee and more dessert, pumpkin spiced Oreos and whiskey! It was a good time with everyone feted and happy moments forever in our memory banks now. 

When present wrappers were shredded, many squeals of delight and joy could be heard along with the oohs and aahs. The joy of giving and the joy of receiving is indeed priceless.

Sigh. Another year has gone by so quickly.

Merry Christmas again to everyone and thank you to the readers/followers of my blog. May your year end on a high!

 

Christmas Eve Dinner 2015

  

Toblerone cheesecake

   

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Chat

A Long Day

14 Dec

Saturday had never felt like such a long day. We had a hearty Indian breakfast before leaving home, taking a leisure drive to Singapore to meet M1, due to touchdown pass midnight at Changi Airport.

Along the way, it rained making the drive not so pleasant but we prevailed and got to the hotel by mid-afternoon. After checking in, we rested a bit but then decided to head out to kill time. Can’t be cooped up in the room twiddling our thumbs while tracking her flight path. She was delayed at Narita. This was what I had feared earlier. The 50 minute gap is just insufficient but thankfully, her ETA stated half an hour late.

It was only six o’clock and we still had seven hours to kill. We had local food at the food court in Albert Centre, close to where we opted to stay this time, Ibis Bencoolen. Away from our usual choice of Shangri-la, Bugis Street was a new place to explore.

The shops along this tourist attraction reminded me of Chatuchak in Bangkok. The only difference being here, the overall place is smaller and most stalls have air-conditioning. We explored as much as possible but there was only so much walking we could do and decided to head back to the hotel. 

By nine, hubby and M2 were sleepy but we had to stay awake. One decided to watch a movie, the other gave in to forty winks.

In the end, the anxiousness got the better of us and we left Ibis at 10.15pm. We decided to take the SMRT to the airport and then later, catch a cab back. By 11.15pm, after one train change at EW4, we arrived at the airport.

Changi is huge. We had to walk quite a distance to get to T1. In the process, all three of us got hungry! Well, dinner was at 6.30pm earlier so that can’t hold the tummy with all this extra walking and anxiety.

ETA showed 0057am, Sunday morning. We still had time to kill. Gosh… It’s rather excruciating when every minute stretched and felt like an eternity. We found a great spot at Starbucks, overlooking Belt 20 where the flight’s bags would come out. Tick… Tock…

By 0056am, her flight from Narita touched down! Yay… finally. It took a while before we spotted M1, sauntering cooly towards Belt 20. She didn’t look tired or zombied after that 24-hour journey. Phew. After lugging her bag off the conveyor belt, and in a blink of an eye, all that waiting and worried thoughts (especially on the delay) vanished when she came through the doors and we hugged her. Relief and happiness set in but the day was not done yet!

We took a cab back to the hotel and with all this excitement, it was hard to wind down. But when it finally did, it was 3.45am when I hit the pillows.

What a long day.

Together again!

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I’m So Excited

11 Dec

It’s so cliché to say how fast time flies but it’s true. Tomorrow my M1 returns from the USA for her Christmas holidays! Whee… and when she comes back, she has gotten this whole lot of Oreos for us! Double whee…

We will of course be tracking her flight and arrival. It will be an anxious time especially when she has that connecting flight to take at Narita International Airport with just a 50 minute gap. I don’t want to dwell on this and just hope no delays in between.

Can’t wait for the moment when the family gets to hug her again. And all that glorious Oreo… Wheee…. 

 

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Wonderful Times

27 Nov

The holiday season is here for Christmas shopping and a ‘Toys R Us’ catalog came in the mail recently. It was fun to look at the pictures of the offerings the toy store has for this year. It also brought back memories of when I first worked on a ‘Toys R Us’ catalog when I was an intern in New York City.

A semester prior, I had engineered an opportunity (before graduation) for a summer internship at WBMG, Inc. in New York City. The time, both in New York City and at WBMG, was exciting and the experience priceless. I had the privilege to work with Walter Bernard and his excellent team of designers as well as being counselled by Milton Glaser. My Polaroid picture is still on their website after all these years! (hint: look out for the bright green tee shirt and big glasses me!)

The project was to design a catalog for Toys R Us among other projects. During that time, the studio also redesigned Adweek, which I also assisted and eventually led to a full time job with the magazine.

Ahh… Such wonderful memories. Would I turn back time now to relive it? A definite yes! Do I regret leaving it? Well, no. I know this is contradictory to my earlier yes to turning back time but my life now is equally wonderful, with my two precious M1 and M2. So I will leave it as memories are meant to be made and cherished. Time and life is meant to be lived, move on and go on.

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Mixed Feelings

29 Dec

This year’s Christmas is a rather long break for us. Hubby and I opted to close the office on Boxing Day too as things are rather slow. With a four and a half day break, all we do is eat and make merry.

We managed to sneak in a golf game to reduce the guilt of eating too much. Other than this, it’s just vegetating on the couch and not much else because weather has been crappy, raining all the time, staying home was a much better option than being out. But of course there’s the candy crushing, farm crop harvesting and soda popping, all couch potato activity.

On the game front, Farm Heroes has progressed on to Level 619 and Candy Crush Soda at Level 105. Even my Zookeeper Battle, I have surpassed my 7000th battle. But Candy Crush remains status quo. I have not moved at all from Level 751 and this is creating a lot of mixed feelings in me. Agony, frustration, annoyance… Sigh.

CandyCrush48

Aarrgghhhh…

My ‘best’ attempt had 44 candies left, hardly qualifying as ‘best’ I think. Am I losing my candy crushing ability, I wonder? I just hope I don’t usher in the new year still sitting Level 751 for my Candy Crush. Double sigh…

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Not Much Progress

26 Dec

With the holiday season around, I have not been playing my games much, not even golf. As far as my virtual games are concerned, I feel as though I have been stuck forever at Level 751 of Candy Crush! It is just so hard. Maybe I should go watch some YouTube posts on it for ideas. Although the other games are just as difficult, I managed to move on: am now at Level 614 in Farm Heroes and Level 101 for Candy Crush Saga.

I wonder if I can overcome 751 before the year ends?

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