My Christmas Diary

Had my first proper Christmas celebration this year.


In the past, Christmas used to be just another public holiday for me... and some nice shows on TV! :p


But this year, I spent it in a slightly different manner. The celebration started quite early, with lots of dinner, party, panto, etc. taking place before everybody left home for the long break.


As people left one by one and wished everyone 'Merry Christmas', it felt so nice.... just like when we leave home for our CNY. Kinda miss that feeling....



Here's my Christmas celebration diary:

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11th Dec: Institute Christmas Lunch


The Christmas Lunch took place at Jimmy Chung's, a Chinese buffet restaurant. They had it there every year. I wonder if it's opened by a Malaysian Chinese as there were satay and curry on the menu.


Before the lunch started, we were presented with our Christmas gift, from our Secret Santa! A few weeks before that, everyone had to draw a name from a box and we had to buy a gift for that person. The recipient would never know who the gift was from. The catch was that the gift must be something silly and not useful!


I got a really big box. And there's a paper sticking on the gift.

Look what was printed overleaf!

Lyrics to a song....

Let's zoom in for a better look...

Do you recognize what song that is? I did not at first. But when a labmate hummed it to me, I recognised it right away. Here's a fun version of that song:

I unwrapped my gift to find this box....

A box of cereal!


But, no, that's not what I got. Instead, I found this inside....

A reindeer headband...... I wore it throughout the lunch hahahaa.....

... and this....

Plasticine! Hahaha.... I've never played with plasticine since primary school. Some received small teddy bear, chocolate, banner, mini table-tennis, etc.... As people started playing with their new toys (yes, even playing table tennis in the restaurant!), I started playing with mine....

Made this in the restaurant...

Made some afterwards.

Aren't they cute? :p

The party did not end after lunch. Instead, we went to the German Christmas Market. There were many colourful and brightly lit stalls selling food, liquor, decorative stuffs, etc. Had a taste of German malt wine.


It was around 4pm when we left the market, and that's when the real night started. We went pub crawling! I was told it's a very common activity here. Going from pub to pub, stopping in every pub for a drink and a chat before moving to the next one. A list was prepared earlier, and there were altogether 8 -10 pubs in the list!


We spent about 45 mins in every pub. Everybody ordered (alcoholic) drinks. I skipped from ordering sometimes, or ordered fruit juice. I wonder how they coped with so much liquid and alcohol in a few hours! Anyway, some pubs were so crowded we had to stand in the middle, once even blocking the entrance to the men's toilet! :p


After the 6th or 7th pub, it was already after 8pm. People started going separate ways, so my labmates and I went for dinner on our own while the rest continued 'crawling'.



13th Dec: Lucia's Day


It was Lucia's Day on the 13th. It's a Swedish event that marks the opening of the Christmas season in Sweden. A labmate organised a small gathering at her place, where everyone prepared a little food for sharing.


We had Lussekatter, also known as St. Lucia bun prepared by a Swedish labmate. Everybody brought something from their home-country. We had Spanish tortilla, English quiche pie, French 'shoo' (I'm not sure how it's spelt, but that's the way it's pronounced to me) and some snacks.


Wonder what I prepared?



Well, I prepared 'tong yuen' (glutinous rice balls in ginger syrup) since it's almost Winter Soltice!

Unfortunately, I could not find glutinous rice flour last minute and I did not have time to search for it. In the end, I bought other type of flour. And the balls did not turn out that well (of course I warned them in advance that it was not the right ingredient, so as to do justice to the right taste of 'tong yuen') :p



At least the ginger syrup turned out well and they loved it :p



25th Dec: Christmas Dinner



On the day itself, I attended the Orphan Christmas Dinner.

Nope, it's not organised by the orphanage. A friend's coursemate organised it for those of us who did not go home during the festive season, and thus 'orphan'.

We arrived at the host's flat at around 1.30 pm.

A Christmas tree surrounded by gifts

The 'dinner' started at around 2 pm when we had our first starter, followed by the main course.

Look at all the food we had! Those were only part of the dinner as the table was too small!

I'm not good at remembering names of food, so.....

Potato pie - the host's own recipe

Potatoes

Some pancakes....

Ham

We also had stuffed turkey, sausages, vegetables, malt wine with berries, fruit juice, tea, and some liquor....


After the main course, we popped our Christmas crackers!

My first Christmas cracker

There were three things inside. A paper crown, a card with joke and trivia printed on it, and a small gift.


And the gift in my cracker was...

A pencil sharpener! :p

We took turn reading out the joke and trivia on our card.

By that time, some of the main course was already digested and made way for more food! So we had our dessert....

Quite a lot for dessert!

We had chocolate with fillings, chocolate truffle, grapes, dumpling with raisin, bacon and sausages, dates, olive, crackers and a variety of cheese (cheddar, goat cheese, German, French, Italian.... sorry I don't remember :p)

By the time we finished eating, it's already past 7pm! Non-stop dinner for 5 hours!

We exchanged gift and I got a box of Thornton's sweets.

My Christmas gift

And of course a group photo....



It felt like a real family Christmas dinner. Had a nice and memorable white Christmas!



But the snow started melting a few days ago! Oh no! There goes my snowman, snow angel, snow fight....... patches of green have reappeared on the white.... and it was really slippery that I almost slipped and fell many a time....




However, there was a light snow today.... and as the cold winter continues, maybe there's still hope for my snowman :p