Christmas Round-Up

How was Christmas for you this year?

We had a quiet one, and I can't say that it was most ideal. I do so love parties and gatherings, but seeing as some of my nearest and dearest friends are not around this year, and our church doesn't do Christmas, plus the fact that I am somewhat unwieldy myself in my current state, I didn't plan or organise any parties of my own. Ah well.

Still, we did manage to have some of our time-honoured and favourite family get-togethers, which are always good fun.

The usual Christmas dinner with my family took place on the 23rd, and I got to cook, much to my delight and my mother's consternation. She thought it would be easier to just buy everything but since my helper was familiar with some of the dishes, it actually wasn't difficult. I love whipping up a meal for my family and friends anyway, which is something my Mum doesn't really understand. I contributed 4 dishes this time round: Mushroom Soup ala Jamie Oliver (which is really really excellent and was loved by all), my usual Roast Beef, Mashed Potato (specially requested by my sister), and a new dish that I was excited to try out -- a cold Japanese-styled pasta dish that I had just tasted at a gathering with DD's old JC classmates.

Cold Japanese-styled pasta

This dish was super easy to put together. The dressing for the noodles was essentially some bottled creamy sesame dressing (like this) mixed with wasabi, to taste. The chilled spaghetti noodles were then tossed with tobiko (flying fish roe), sesame seeds and shredded nori seaweed. Try it! I think it makes a good side and everyone loved it. Credit to DD's friend Florence for coming up with this.

It was a casual evening of food and conversation, and I closed one eye to the fact that Noey hardly ate anything except Ham for dinner. And only went to sleep WAY past his bedtime at around 11pm.

We spent most of Christmas Eve at home trying, at the last minute, to find somewhere to have dinner with DDMum. Not the best idea, and naturally, every single buffet we tried in town (except Fullerton, which I thought was ridiculously expensive) was full. So we cast our net a little further afield and eventually landed ourselves a table at The Terrace at the Sentosa Resort & Spa (ie. Beaufort, as we all know it). It turned out great -- the atmosphere was relaxed and the food, a seafood spread, was delicious. There were many live stations, one of which was a seafood counter where you had your pick of crabs, mussels, clams, prawns, yabbies and crayfish which you could choose to either steam or barbeque. There was also another counter serving fresh salmon or sea bream which they pan fried to order and served with veggies in some foamy sauce. And with a wagyu beef roast, roasted goose and a whole other room full of dessert, I think we quite ate our fill!

Noey duly finished the backup porridge meal that we brought for him and spent the rest of the time having dessert or roaming the dining area and entertaining himself trying to trigger the automatic sliding door leading to the outdoor seating area.

Oh, and there were carolers too -- our first encounter with any this season. This group was from NUS as they were really pretty good. "Very balanced", as DD put it. Noey was quite enthralled for a bit. He does really love singing Christmas songs so I guess it went down well with him.

Us, food, ice-cream and presents! Noey deemed it a good evening.

We had a good time, though Noey went to bed shockingly late yet again -- something we would pay for the next day.

The last major event of the season for us was Christmas Day itself, where we made our morning pilgrimage to my parents' for our annual Christmas morning gift exchange and paper ripping event. I must admit this is one of the highlights of the season for me, even though, by now, we don't really have that many presents of our own to open. Instead, Noey is the one with the endless stream of presents! I couldn't even cart all of them over, there were so many.

Compared with last year, Noey was somewhat more interested in opening his presents this year. More specifically, he was much more excited about taking the items out of their boxes to play with. He couldn't be bothered with ripping open the wrapping paper. He did make himself rather useful distributing the gifts though.

The rest of us had the fun on his behalf.

The winner of Noey's present of choice prize? Kong Kong's box of 20 matchbox cars.

(Yiyi's oinking piggy bank came a close second. even after he managed to ruin the oinking mechanism, he is still slotting in coins and taking them out again, manually contributing the oinking and clinking sounds himself!)

With the bear from 姨婆, whose name, according to Noey, is "Hugs & Kisses", as branded on its foot!

When we were done, we headed to my parents' church for Christmas service. While I was a teeny bit disappointed that I couldn't take Lyn up on her offer to attend her church's Christmas service, it was nice, worshiping as a family on this occasion since we all attend separate churches these days.

Noey was a relatively good boy, though he was obviously getting tired. He conked off after church when we were on-route to lunch and unfortunately, being the poor stroller sleeper that he is, only managed a half-hour nap in total, waking up shortly into lunch.

And that was when the trouble started.

He didn't want to eat, not surprisingly, and when we got home he did not want to sleep. Basically anything we wanted him to do, he did not want to do. Every request/order was met with crying. And screaming. And tantrums. The whole day. I was exasperated and DD lost his cool a couple of times. It was singularly our worst parenting day ever. I was so glad to see it end!

I think we've jut about recovered from all that tiredness. Noey woke up at 10am for 3 days in a row thereafter, sleeping 12-13 hours a night, which is much more than his usual 10 hours. Our nerves have just about settled as well.

And now it's almost the year end! Definitely no late nights for Noey this time round!