Christmas weekend

Phew... the Christmas weekend is over!

Actually, it was a pretty good weekend. It started early since Christmas eve was a half day at work. Chris was home early too. We had dinner at home with the family, then everyone decided to come and check out our new apartment. It's almost ready, just some carpentry work that needs to be completed. We need to get curtains measured and fitted too.

On Christmas day the entire family met up for breakfast at the Botanic Gardens. We were reasonably early so managed to get seats. The family is growing! We needed a table for 10 just for the immediate family! After breakfast the kids got to feed some overfed and stuffed fish at the lake, before heading home to raid the gift pile.

Now that Madison is getting older, it's quite fun to see her get excited over the presents. Madison and Elizabeth were swimming in gift wrap and endless amounts of toys, clothing and other paraphernalia. The rest of us did our gift swaps and I think we were all quite happy with each other's selection this year.

Instead of an eve dinner we planned a Christmas day dinner with turkey. A few relatives were invited and it was perfect with Han Ting around.( That made Chai very happy!) We bought the turkey 4 days earlier and started thawing it out 2 days prior. The day before it was soaked in a brining solution and then I started to prepare it for baking 6 hours before dinner. The entire baking time was 4 hours at 160 Celcius. I did it from a vague memory of this recipe that I'd tried a few years ago and the turkey turned out great. This time round was the same! The breast was tender while the legs were juicy, and the meat had the fragrance of the herbs that I covered it in during brining AND baking. Pa also made roast pork and a braised version that we turned into a prawn and pork salad. For dessert we had 2 log cakes. And of course, lots of bubbly. By the end, we were stuffed but happy. The kids got to eat their fill of sugar too.

Boxing day was a day sans helpers. All 3 of them were off for the holiday. The morning was kind of nice, Chris and I got to laze about with the kids for all of 15minutes in our pjs, then I got breakfast started. After brekky we went over to the pool at our new apartment for a dip. After THAT we headed over to the swimming club. The plan was lunch there but since we were early we had our second dip at the club pool. Annika got to go in for a swim too! Her first! She took it remarkably well, considering the water was actually quite cold. I didn't let her stay in too long, since the midday sun was on the way up. After lunch we drove around for an hour while Madison had her nap. Learnt my lesson from the last time I had to do an afternoon nap... I got the nap and not the kid!

So, we got to see the massive house on Nassim Road that had the biggest Christmas tree ever, with an amazing light up to boot. The house had 2 huge dragons on its' formidable front gates.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the apartment, I was beyond paying attention and managed to dent the back bumper bar on the left reversing into the carpark...(sob).

Dinner was out at Pudong, a Shanghainese restaurant at Balmoral Plaza. We had our favourite braised pork, dumplings, noodles in sauce and cold toufu. The restaurant has good food, although service leaves much to be desired. The restaurant itself looks a little dingy and aged but oh well... the foods' good.

This week feels weird... hopefully it'll be a good one to end the year off!