Happy Christmas!

Well, I was late last year so thought I'd make up for it by being really early this year!
Christmas as you might expect was a completely different affair from being back home in Blighty. Warm for a start, although (as anyone who's lived here longer than us will tell you), we are going through an unseasonably cool period. I say cool, not cold, but if you listen to some of the locals I think they reckon it might snow any time soon. It is after all only mid to late 20s at the moment and I'll grant you it feels cooler, more comfortable. But cold, no, not cold. Cold is what what all our Singaporean friends found when they returned to the UK on their holiday break. Cold is what stopped some of them getting home for four days. Cold is what kept at least two of them in Frankfurt for two days! That is cold.
Anyhow, Christmas felt like a lead up of shop, shop, shop and then one day of Happy Christmas which is kind of unusual but I think that's kind of how it works here, at least for expats. For a start it's obviously not the most celebrated 'festival' over here and a lot of expats disappear of to, well, not warmer climes but different climes. So the condo becomes quite quiet and empty feeling. Having said that we started the day in the normal way and had our various favourites for breakfast (I had my now customary smoked salmon and cream cheese on an English muffin) and a drop of fruit juice and bubbly stuff. And then another drop.

 The kids, of course, went nuts for the pressies which were sitting under our new, fake (there was a another first), 8ft Christmas tree. T thought we needed a tall one on account of having high ceilings but once it was up... well, it was quite big! It was decorated according to Orchard Road etiquette. Big baubles, slightly garish. It looked great! So we all sat around and opened lots of presents with the kids. And had a very nice time. Lunch was cooked in our new oven (an electrical sit on the kitchen worktop job, I was sceptical but it really works) and was fab. It was quite a nice novelty to be able to send photos (like the one above) to the family and friends for when they got up on Christmas Day. What was nice was that we had been invited by friends to a BBQ in the condo along with various other people who were either devoid of friends, family or both (that makes it sound a bit sad which it really wasn't). This was going swimmingly. The Kiwis who organised it couldn't light the thing to save their lives and I laughed a lot and had another beer while I watched. The kids were enjoying themselves in the pool with some of their new toys. And everyone was having fun. And then it rained. Hard. With thunder and lightning. And monsoon type amounts of rain. But no problem. We took the meat (I took the rack of lamb!) inside and cooked it in the ovens. Then, once the heavens had decided that maybe as it was Christmas Day they'd let us off with a little mild flooding, we headed back down and continued into the night. A very quick sum up of what actually felt like quite a quick day. Which means I enjoyed it. And hopefully so did everyone else. So we survived our first Christmas Day. Boxing Day, well, that was just like any other day. And anyway, we had plans afoot for more southerly countries.....