Christmas celebrations

Last year Christmas was another eventful festival - filled with makan sessions - a dinner spent catching up with friends and their respective families (oh, how this group has grown!), another Christmas dinner cum farewell for a beloved friend who by now has migrated to Australia with her family, an Eve dinner my side of the family and Christmas luncheon with Daddy's side.

Besides watching the kids open their presents full of excitement and glee, decorating the Christmas tree, chilling out with friends and family over food, watching Christmas musicals and plays and just dwelling in the house of God on Christmas Day itself, I love... just the family time together, even if we huddle along the walkways and eat our rotis at the mamak.  But truth be told... I'm still dreaming of a white Christmas...

Speaking of which, William made me say a prayer I really didn't mean and didn't want to.  He was so persistent that I asked God for this on his behalf, I couldn't turn him down.  So, it went something like this - just a few weeks before Christmas...

"Dear God, please can you send some snow to Malaysia so we can all build snowmen and play with snow?  Thank you, in Jesus' name, Amen."

Mind you, I had no role in his sudden desire for this.  Fortunately he didn't follow up on why his prayer was not answered.  Phew.

That aside, I ordered this pair of Smurfs for the kids in early October from Samantha
and upon receiving them in November, I hid them amongst Daddy's clothing in our wardrobe where the kids would never, EVER reach or even looked at.  Haha, not that I have anything against Daddy's clothes. 

Image taken from Samm's Amigurumi Cafe - the rest are not ours, just the Smurfs.  She's one gifted, multi-tasking lady!

The Smurf craze was in for my two kids, but after learning our lesson in the Toy Story Christmas two years ago where we and relatives bought almost every type of TS merchandize on the shelf and then by CNY the following year, they moved on to another animation.  Not that TS toys are collecting dusts here but Buzz Lightyear have not flown to eternity and beyond for many months now, and Cowboy and Cowgirl are merely spectators on my CD rack.  So back to Smurf, we decided to take it easy this time... 

So the two handmade crochet smurfs - a Smurfette and a Baker Smurf were on the way.

Then on one shopping trip to Isetan, we saw 12 inches tall Smurf soft toys on the clearance rack... if I recall correctly, they were going for 80% discount.  The popular characters were gone, but Vic was happy to adopt Grouchy Smurf and William picked Clumsy Smurf. 

Then came the surprise of a new bicycle EACH - which all started with upgrading William from his toddler tricycle.  Since we were at the bicycle shop, we might as well change Vic's current bicycle which was of poor quality bought from Carrefour 3 years ago, to one of good steel and handling (and I was told, double rims too!)  Hers came without the learning wheels so this is her motivation to learn to ride.

Obviously the two bikes were too big to wrap, and no point too as the kids chose them themselves.  Thank God for Yeh Yeh's car that could load both bikes in and transported them from the Seremban shop to our house in PJ. I was surprised that a big car like Daddy's had such restricted boot space.

Riding at the Taman Tun park

Here are more pictures of Christmas...

The girls with Popo Gong Gong

Goofing around with cousin Ling.  William insisted that his present should be wrapped, so he can place it under our christmas tree back home (such a traditionalist!) and poor Gong Gong has to quickly source for brown paper as there was no wrapping paper in the house.  My bad, because I remembered offering to bring wrapping paper but last minute decided it was unnecessary as the boy will just rip it apart anyway...

Would you believe this boy... he didn't unwrap a single present, not at Popo Gong Gong's house, nor at Mama Yeh Yeh's house, only because he wanted to place ALL his presents under OUR Christmas tree at home, and then leave it there till... until I had to threaten offer him that I will open it for him, if he doesn't.  Quickly, the ever-so-willing Jie Jie jumped in the opportunity and helped him to open his presents.  Here, he is holding a TS puzzle by Yee Sok and Yee Sam.

What's this?  An ukulele!!  This is the second Christmas present from Gong Gong... So, Vic, now you know what to do, yea? 

Something girlish that Vic chose with Yeh Yeh for her Christmas pressie... a box of handicraft work to make necklaces, bracelets, headbands, etc. 

And finally... a pose beside the Christmas tree of moi...