C Party

cake. chocolate coated chips. cookies. cream. coffee.

1. She learnt her C words.
2. I cleared Christmas goodies.
3. Mr Fluffy Hubby played barista with his new Nespresso machine.
4. And we celebrated the New Year!

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Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve: she leaves a present on the foyer settee for Santa Claus. Snow scene with our house on the bottom right. It has a flower growing inside and a kitty cat sitting outside. Waiting.

Is Santa going to make it?

Christmas Day!

Ho ho ho!

Christmas party, roast turkey. Garnished with so many spices, stuffed with sweet dates, served with warm mushrooms and drenched in tangy cranberry sauce.

There were also home-cooked spaghetti aglio olio with portobello mushrooms, takeaway pizzas with garlic bread and chicken drumlets, popiah, tomato and red pepper soup.

Plum cake for dessert. Moist.

Fruit cake – untouched. Chocolate cookies at the side were a hit.

The best eggs in the world — jelly eggs! They were a lovely surprise. She gobbled half a jelly egg, swallowed another 5 mini cups of wobbly jellies and inhaled 1 scoop of watermelon ice cream plus 1 more scoop of cookies & cream ice cream.

We gave away a huge chocolate log cake. Because we really couldn’t eat anymore!

Rapunzel dress from her grandparents, Disney Princesses Ultimate Guide from us, Dr Seuss box set from her elder uncle and aunty, Dora backpack + tumbler + wrist strap + Boots ring + Princess Belle jigsaw puzzle + Disney Princesses 2011 calendar from her younger uncle and aunty, Dora’s 10 Best Adventures from Aunty S, orange kitty cat purse from Aunty CL, Royce Baton Cookies + Candy Cane + Hello Kitty pen from her school, and Fantasia DVD from Santa Claus!

Leftover Face Shop masks from Mr Fluffy Hubby’s office party. I grabbed them for myself.

Some love from Mr Fluffy Hubby. I badgered him for every single one of these gifts. Except kitty cat. I found her sitting in my living room on Christmas Eve. I think she looks like me.

Also to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Together for 10 years, married for 8.

Random stuff I got for him.

But this is the real present.

Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Miracle… New Year Resolution

I’ve never worked so hard through Christmas. I guess it’s different when it’s still the 3rd? 5th? 6th? year of your PhD. I don’t even know how they count the number of years anymore. But surely it means, there’s hope yet for me.

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Boxing Day

We spent Boxing Day playing with her toys!

Read also:
Christmas in School
Christmas Arts & Crafts @Home
Dolling Up for Christmas
Christmas Tree
Christmas Fun
Christmas Party
Christmas Presents

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Christmas Presents

Her Christmas presents

Mr Fluffy and I gave her Hot Wheels, which she has been asking and waiting almost half a year for. We got her Lego on behalf of my parents, and it turned out to be her favourite present, much to our surprise. Santa gave her the canvas cat and the balloon cat which she asked for. Her bears and cat gave her a mermaid princess, much to her surprise.

The rest are from her uncles and aunties. She taps her Kitty Cat light before and after her bedtime stories, and plays with her Dora & Boots alarm clock before settling into bed every night. She’s also had tons of fun with Dora & Boots, especially sliding Boots by his tail down from his treehouse to the lego house which Mr Fluffy Hubby had built for her. And she’s still making us read her Dora books to her everyday.

My present for Mr Fluffy Hubby

Mr Fluffy Hubby’s presents for me

Read also:
Christmas in School
Christmas Arts & Crafts @Home
Dolling Up for Christmas
Christmas Tree
Christmas Fun
Christmas Party
Boxing Day

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Christmas Party

Christmas lunch party at home

Turkey with cranberry sauce

Mini tarts filled with crab meat and roe

Mini wagyu beef burgers

Cocktail sausages wrapped in turkey bacon

Butterfly prawns

Mussels baked in cheese

This was my favourite food item. Hmm…

Teriyaki chicken skewers

She loved this. Chewed it right off the skewer.

Christmas cookies

These are fabulous. We’re still eating them. My favourite is the plain chocolate coloured one – cinnamon cookie. Her favourite is, of course, the chocolate chip cookie. (Mr Fluffy Hubby’s favourite, right now, is his own shortbread bear cookie with mini M&Ms for eyes and a chocolate drop for nose.)

Banana bread pudding

Baked by Mr Fluffy Hubby and her before the party. We had it with vanilla and chocolate chip ice cream. Yums!

Read also:
Christmas in School
Christmas Arts & Crafts @Home
Dolling Up for Christmas
Christmas Tree
Christmas Fun
Christmas Presents
Boxing Day

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Christmas Fun

If there was only one thing she wanted this Christmas, it would be to meet Santa Claus at Robinsons and to get a mini lollipop from him again. So we brought her to Centrepoint’s Robinsons after her Kindermusik lesson one Saturday. Santa wasn’t there! He had left! The Robinsons Christmas booklet didn’t state the timings, so we were under the impression that it was an all day meet & greet session during the weekends. She was horribly let down. We met the musical bears instead. I thought they were lovely. But she remained crestfallen.

More musical bears travelling along. I thought they were lovely too, but she was still unimpressed. Probably because she has already seen them last year. Besides, they weren’t about to give her a lolly.

A Christmas tree made up of musical bears. I got as excited as last year; she was even less enthusiastic than last year.

Then, we discovered a ferris wheel full of bears. That’s Papa Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear waiting for their turn there. We stood staring at it for a long while, enthralled by the slow rounds it was taking its time to make, enchanted by the lilting little tune it was playing. She forgot her disappointment, finally. (Ok, she had a meltdown once we walked away from the ferris wheel, but it worked its magic while it lasted.)

We went to Plaza Singapura to catch the Care Bears.

Funshine Bear, Love-a-Lot Bear and Share Bear singing and dancing away.

We had ice cream topped with M&Ms after that.

Stumbled onto the Christmas activities at 313 Somerset.

We took a photo with Santa and Santarina here. She wasn’t particularly taken with this Santa Claus because he didn’t have a lollipop for her. After all, Christmas is one of the few times in the year during which she gets to stuff herself silly with sweets. What good is Santa to her if he’s not going to give her at least a mini lolly?

Blackforest cake with chocolate ice cream for dessert after that.

Balloon sculpturing at Tanglin Mall. I thought the nativity scene was one of the best balloon sculptures I’ve come across. She got herself an orange balloon cat after her Kindermusik lesson.

A capella at Paragon. She was so taken with the Christmas carols they were singing, she stood rooted to her spot one floor up and refused to go for her dinner till the performance was over. Then she made sure she went to thank them for singing, before finally agreeing to go for dinner.

We brought her back to Robinsons the last day Santa Claus was supposed to be around. This time, we went to Raffles City. She finally met the right Santa who gave her a mini lollipop. That totally made her Christmas. (Even though I thought last year’s Christmas meet & greet with photo-taking at Centrepoint’s Robinsons was much better compared to Santa randomly walking around Raffles City this year.) Getting a balloon snowman was an added stroke of luck.

Ben & Jerry’s cookies & cream and strawberry ice cream covered in mini M&Ms. We had a voucher, so we paid only $0.50 for it. It was so good!

Read also:
Christmas in School
Christmas Arts & Crafts @Home
Dolling Up for Christmas
Christmas Tree
Christmas Party
Christmas Presents
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Christmas Tree

This year, we put up our Christmas tree an entire month before Christmas. That’s amazing, considering last year, we put up our Christmas tree just a couple of days before Christmas. This year, she helped to hang up some of the ornaments. That’s even more amazing, considering last year, she was cheekily and determinedly yanking the ornaments off it.

Everybody thinks he’s a sock. He’s an elf.

Everybody thinks it’s a dove. It’s a partridge.

Our Christmas tree at night.

Sitting under our Christmas tree watching Thomas go by.

Thomas chugging along beneath our Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve!

Christmas tree is crazily decked to bursting with her crafts and stuffed with bags and bags of presents underneath. On display in the Christmas corner are more of her crafts, a Christmas card from her friend R, a balloon snowman and a photo taken with Santa and Santarina. Our TV wears a Christmas wreath for a hat. Glass angels with golden wings lounge around lazily whilst playing their own music amidst golden jingle bells.

It’s already a magical Christmas.

Read also:
Christmas in School
Christmas Arts & Crafts @Home
Dolling Up for Christmas
Christmas Fun
Christmas Party
Christmas Presents
Boxing Day

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Dolling Up for Christmas

Mr Fluffy Hubby set up a snow scene with the log cake decorations from years and years ago! Golden tree’s from the winter apple that broke off on our (real) Christmas tree.

You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry, you’d better not pout, I’m telling you why… Santa Claus is coming to town!

Mr Fluffy Hubby and her made a glittery Christmas tree, topped with a star! I lit the sky up with more stars – four, to be exact. One for Mr Fluffy Hubby, one for me, one for her, and one more beside the moon for everything we wish for.

Mr Fluffy Hubby made a Christmas wreath.

Mr Fluffy Hubby and I put up the Christmas decorations. Shimmering lights and squishy squashy snowballs, soft snowflakes and sparkling stars everywhere. Some orange, pink and purple beads she picked out too. We helped her string them to the front door.

It’s Christmas, it’s love.

Read also:
Christmas in School
Christmas Arts & Crafts @Home
Christmas Tree
Christmas Fun
Christmas Party
Christmas Presents
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Christmas Art & Crafts @Home

Christmas card for me!

Mr Fluffy Hubby and her made this for me one Sunday morning while I was performing my mandatory beauty ritual before stepping out of the house. He dotted out MERRY CHRISTMAS for her to trace, and she obligingly and happily traced over them. He cut out the sparkly stuff from recycled wrapping paper; the reindeers, the snowman and small fir trees from Toysrus and Robinsons Christmas booklets. He used shape cutters we had bought at a big bargain in Hongkong, Ladies’ Market, to cut out the stars and hearts. She helped with the circles. They pasted everything together. It’s the nicest card I’ve ever received.

Christmas card for Santa

Another Sunday morning, another mandatory beauty ritual, Mr Fluffy Hubby and her made this tiny card, for Santa Claus this time. He drew a small Christmas tree with a big star topper, and she coloured them. Then he sewed her favourite orange beads dangling from the mini Christmas tree. Jingle bells! I pegged it with a Santa peg and pegged them both onto our Christmas tree.

Snowflake

Yet another Sunday morning, but a different type of beauty ritual – I was playing Sleeping Beauty. Mr Fluffy Hubby took a piece of A4 size scrap paper and randomly cut it into a snowflake. Then it just lay around the house for weeks and weeks, till just 3 days before Christmas, she and I spread glitter glue all over it. We had to wait for the glue to dry, so this was one the last of the crafts to go up on the Christmas tree. In fact, we hung it up only on the night of Christmas Eve when she was already fast asleep.

Snow people family

That same Sunday Mr Fluffy Hubby cut out the snowflake, he also drew some snow people. A snow papa, a snow mummy, and a snow baby. Each one of them is drawn in their favourite colours, each one of them wears a hat (mine looks like a shower cap) and a scarf, and each one of them holds their own bear. She coloured the bears partially.

The next day, I got her to finish colouring the bears, as well as the snow people’s head gears. Then I cut them out and also used shape cutters to cut out stars and hearts from recycled wrapping paper. I got her to stick them all on a piece of paper I’d measured and cut out.

She requested for a rabbit on a boat floating in the sea (it’s a blue piece of paper… she must have been thinking of 《小白船》。。。蓝蓝的天空银河里，有只小白船。船上有颗桂花树，白兔在游玩。）So I cut out the rabbit with a shape cutter and drew the tiniest boat floating on the tiniest sea for her. She coloured the boat, coloured the sea, and pasted the rabbit into the boat, with a couple of stars twinkling above in the sky.

We placed our family portrait inside the photo frame she had brought back from her school’s Christmas Camp, and displayed it in our Christmas corner.

Present for RC

Yet another Sunday morning when I was still playing Sleeping Beauty, Mr Fluffy Hubby had another go at randomly cutting a small (red?) snowflake for her cousin, RC. It didn’t work out so well this time, and the snowflake ended up looking more like Chinese New Year 剪纸 (probably because it’s red and square). They stuck it onto a green piece of paper to try to adapt it to the right festive season. Then Mr Fluffy Hubby cut out a candy cane from another one of those departmental stores Christmas booklets. She pasted the candy cane, stuck RC’s favourite Doraemon sticker, then stamped her favourite Dora & Boots stamp on the green piece of paper. Mr Fluffy Hubby affixed it onto the present.

Reindeers

I finally decided to get my act together and made paper bag reindeer puppets with her one evening after school.

The large paper bag contained her Christmas presents from the school; the small paper bag was 1 side of a pair of pretend galoshes handed out during her Kindermusik class.

She chose purple for the reindeers’ antlers and traced the outlines of her hands herself. She also traced the outline of the reindeers’ nose.

I cut them out, folded the paper bags, then got her to cut out sticky tape.

She stuck the antlers on with sticky tape, and glued the noses on.

She used a pencil to draw their eyes. I adjusted them with black marker (she doesn’t seem to understand placement so well yet ie eyes are above and at each side of the nose) and gave them big smiles.

She must have been really pleased about the reindeers because she spontaneously decided to draw the bigger reindeer a pair of knees and long legs! The 2 faint circles on the body of the bigger reindeer? Those are the knees!

When she was done, she gave the bigger reindeer to her grandmother, and kept the smaller reindeer for herself. Theoretically. Because in reality, they have been chilling in our Christmas corner till now.

(Detailed instructions on Paper Bag Reindeer Puppet Craft)

Reindeer wrapping paper

I wrapped up the Christmas presents with reindeer wrapping paper. She cut up the leftover scraps of wrapping paper, making sure to cut around each reindeer. The green cup on the left contains the scraps; the yellow cup on the right contains the ones she had carefully cut out.

When I was all done wrapping up the Christmas presents and she was all done cutting out reindeers, she demanded that I wrap her up too. So I did! I wrapped a swathe of reindeers around her waist and taped it to her. Then we pranced around the Christmas tree. Ho ho ho!

Read also:
Christmas in School
Dolling Up for Christmas
Christmas Tree
Christmas Fun
Christmas Party
Christmas Presents
Boxing Day

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