Christmas 2016 -- A little late but nonetheless served

My first post of 2017 before the first quarter ends is about Christmas 2016. A little late but nonetheless served.

IMAGE HEAVY
Loooooooong picture-ful post. Go get your drinks and popcorn while waiting for the images to load. You could even savour your main dish in front of your computer. Those viewing this on your smartphones and other hand held devices, I suggest you skip reading this post till you get home or you might risk jamming your device and cursing at my blog in public. I know my turtle friend did that once minus the cursing in public. =P








~*The One with AVJ*~

Since I have a new home and a new cat, friends naturally asked if they could meet up at my home.

"Can we visit Miyo's home for our next gathering?" was the question they asked to self invite to my place. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°




Christmas meet up with That Group That Shall Not Be Named (aka AVJ) would either take place way before Christmas or after Christmas since it has become a tradition for April to spend the December holidays at her hub's birth country with the whole family. For this year, April and Viv were the first group of friends to crash my place early in December.




And because I'm a lazy Singaporean host who doesn't whip up Pinterest-worthy meals for my guests, we ordered from West Grill Station via Food Panda instead.




It was so funny how Viv brought a bottle of blueberry Somersby when this lousy host has got a full carton of the apple version in the fridge. We had it with some gluten free, egg free and everything free healthy cookies.




Everyone agreed that Miyo is a pretty cat but looked like a uncooperative bitch in photos. ヾ(＾∇＾)









~*The One with F4 Minus 1*~


F4 Minus Wy were also excited to see my new home and my new cat. I never knew Em and Hs are such cat lovers! Or maybe it's just Miyo that really melts non cat lovers' hearts.




Do you know how many shots it took to try to get Miyo to shed off her Resting Bitch Face when taking wefie? This many! And still, she did not wipe off that RBF of hers.




We ordered Miam Miam via Food Panda again. Food Panda is a lifesaver for lazy hosts like me. You would soon see that Miam Miam was the choice selection for all the meet ups during the Christmas season at my place because everyone loved Miam Miam and those who hadn't tried Miam Miam loved it after that!




Miyo wanted to join in the feast too!




Our neverending chats would be interspersed with a furry little gremlin trying to make everyone swoon and laugh (even though she looked like a bitchy cat 翻白眼 in all the photos taken that day). And the sofa seemed to make everyone melt into it. I swear there's some sort of magic dust on this sofa that we didn't know about. I simply love stay in Sundays with the good people in my life.




Miyo said, "Why does everyone fusses about with that Apple thing?"




Miyo said, " She's my mummy and I claim this human territory."
See what Miyo is up to at @miyo_kitty on Instagram.




Thank you Em for the unicorns and rainbows. We still think those are rocking horses but we are totally cool if you wanna say they are unicorns. LOL!




As per all my Christmas gifts over the years, there would always be the customization/personalization aspect. This year's gift came in the form of an ambigram keychain whistle of the name with an inspirational word when turned upside down. It was really fun getting everyone to read what their inspirational word is!




The best feeling when friends received their gifts was when they showed how much they loved the word I chose for them. :D









~*The One on Christmas Eve Eve*~


There were only so few of us who were in office on the 23rd so we unaimously agreed to have a good lunch at Ichiban Boshi.




This was what I ordered. It was a really filling and satisfying meal.




I just thought how this spontaneous arrangement of letters at Typo made it look like the shop belonged to hubz and me. LOL









~*The One on Christmas Eve*~


Christmas Eve was spent with the BHimbos. The theme was "Of Cats and Pets" and then it became "Be Mild or Go Wild".




Spot the leopard, rabbit, reindeer, tiger, spider, unicorn, baby and cat. Nothing that wild except possibly the stuff friends of 20 something years talk about.




The cat lovers.




The Baby Whisperer Number 1.




The Baby Whisperer Number 2.




Um... The Baby Whisperer Number 3? Humans and cat alike were so gentle to Baby Ethan.




The BHimbos...




And their inspirational word.




Super love this photo that Xtina took for us! Miyo had never been that cooperative when taking photos and Xtina totally nailed it when Miyo turned to look without flashing her usual RBF.




RBF on the rise.




Itacho Sushi Xmas eve dinner with the hubz.











~*The One on Christmas Day*~


The best way to spend Christmas? With my family of course!




Just the night before, I gave my family ridiculous instructions for the Christmas gathering at our place and they really followed!

Things such as:
- Pressing our unit number and saying "Open sesame!" Checked!
- Yell "ding dong" at the main door. Checked!
- Come dressed in cats or pets. Checked!

In fact, check out our spirit animals. We have got a mouse, 4 cats and 2 dogs. My mum even made my dad wear his only animal top with a Mickey Mouse logo even though it's an old shirt that hasn't been worn for a long time. So the 老鼠屎 is really the hubz whose only animal shirt (a Mickey Mouse too) isn't with him. So he had to make do with my kitty blankie. I love sporting people!



Those whose spirit animals are dogs:

My mum




My 2nd sis (who really wanted her spirit animal to be a cat so in goes Miyo)




And Miyo photobombed coz she really wanted my mum's spirit animal to be her!




Those whose spirit animals are cats:

My big sis



My BIL




Me of course




And my hubz who didn't have any animal top so he had to carry kitty blankie everywhere as a punishment.




As for my dad, his only animal top was this Mickey Mouse top. And he too, really wanted a cat.




So all our spirit animals are actually cats!




My mum used to be terrified of cats. She would scream and stand on the chair if a cat brushed against her legs. She slowly grew to love Simba, our first and only family cat. And even then, she only dared to carry Simba by her "armpits". It's the first time I ever seen my mum carrying a cat in this way!




My parents love Miyo so much! The last time Miyo stayed over at their place when hubz and I were overseas, they totally spoiled her rotten.







Evil cat look




Evil cat gets Christmas gifts from my sis. These are actually Luke Oreo's (my sis's rescued one eye blind black cat) favourite can food.




LOL... Miam Miam again!






Well at least something I did my best as a good host to personalize their paper cups.














Our balcony looks pretty with the white outdoor furniture. However it is the most under utilized area in our home as the floor gets caked with black dust every other day that I got lazy to clean it. The hubz cleaned the balcony and the cushion swing before my family came over coz he thought my dad might love to sit on the swing and true enough, my dad asked if he could! I thought that was really sweet of the hubz.




This is Miyo saying, "Look at this regal lion."




This is Miyo saying, "FML."




My cute parents.



The evening was spent at my big sis's place and I was so happy to see my god dog Princeton again. If you want to see more photos of him, follow him at @princeton_bratwurst on Instagram.




Ambigram of our names.




Could you decipher the inspirational words?









~*The One on Boxing Day*~


We had too much rich food in our tummies during the whole festive holiday. So on Boxing Day, the St Nicks gang (aka the 上半年 babies) gathered to have a home cooked feast at Sy's home!






Love this CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School doll!




For lunch, we had a great balance of delicious japchae, baked lemon butter garlic salmon, chicken drumsticks, salad, black bean soup, dim sum and Choya to top everything off.




Such yummy in our tummies!




I loved every single dish and I loved it that my friends loved my black bean ground nut pork rib soup even though it doesn't look appetizing at all. This soup has since become synonymous to me as a few friends who came over my place had tried and loved it.




Sy's japchae is like the best japchae ever!
















And then for tea, we had pistachio cake with matcha ice cream, lavender biscuits, orange biscuits and Irish breakfast tea.






Candice's 2 kids are lovely! And of course all Singaporean mothers would say, "Oh but they are monsters at home."



They said, "Must snap how a blogger takes flat lay shot!"

Actually I don't really know how to take flat lays and I'm sure I'm doing it wrong coz they certainly look nothing like those instagram-worthy photos I often see on other people's feed.




All the sweet sweet gifts!






My share of gifts after unwrapping. Really sweet right?




Time to unravel the code again!







Friends of 20 years gather together for home cooked lunch and western tea on Boxing Day. Some things may change but true friendship never does.




Quoting from last year's Christmas gathering with this 上半年 babies:
When we said that we have been frenz for 20 years, we all pretended that we knew one another since we were 5. So you know, we are REALLY 25 years young.









~*The One with the Friends at Work*~


The 27th was spent with my department at one of our colleague's place. If you don't already know, I really like my dept colleagues a lot. We often joke that we are not colleagues but friends because somebody once said during a dinner after work that "Lunch is for colleagues. Dinner is for friends". That phrase stuck on till now.




I missed the first part of the party coz I felt like I popped something in my right rib when I was coughing badly in the middle of the night. I had been coughing for 3 months then without getting better. The flooding of delicious food photos over Whatsapp prompted me to go no matter what coz you know, I'm a greedy pig (no... I really like my dept).




H's specialty -- Stuffed turkey. I've never eaten turkey so moist and flavourful before!




Yummy!




ZM's home baked mini cakes!




Apparently these are 3D glasses.




Games time!






The 2 newest colleagues were the party planners.




Cheers to the end of the year and a fruitful new year.




Parting shots before crashing the next colleague's home.




Thanks C for letting us crash your home.




Parting shot at the next coll's home. Boo hoo... I was not in there coz I was otw to the polyclinic to have my lungs checked. Thankfully the x-ray showed no bone fracture and the doc ruled it as pulling a muscle from violent coughing.




It was really cute how some of my friends from work asked if I took a group shot of everyone's names (coz I gave the gifts earlier to those who were in office on the 23rd). So those 6 who turned up for work on the 23rd returned theirs so that I could take a group photo... of their names. Lol!




This cute little fella visited me finally while the rest of the world had already collected loads of Santa Pikachu.




The hubz was craving for Italian cuisine so we went to Le Cantina in Venezia for dinner.




Clams in white wine and garlic is my absolute favourite. I like them as pasta, as soup, as antipasti, as anything.




Another favourite antipasti of ours in any restaurant would be the beef carpaccio with shaved parmesan cheese.




We weren't too blown over my the main dishes though. We couldn't even remember what we ordered.




His and mine tasted almost the same even though we did not order the same type of sauce.




Some sweetness to end it all.




My pretty sandals were causing me pain by the end of the day because of the beads.









~*The One from 2016 to 2017*~


Had it become an unspoken tradition to spend the last day of the year and the first day of the new year with this amazing group of friends?

As usual, it was a wonderful evening of loads of food in the tummy and joy in the heart with the VIOS gang. I have lots of wacky and super onz friends and this is one of the group that's always game for silly theme dressing, doing outrageous stuff and laughing ourselves crazy from the things we say and do.

I "burst" something under my right lung from vigorous coughing and I laughed so much that day that the burst part continued to snap down the right ribs. That night, I finally understood how the term "side-splitting" came about.




That was Miyo protesting before we went out without her till the next year because we told her, "Bye Miyo. See you next year!"




That was how the buffet spread looked like.




That was how I wrapped my gift with magazine paper and felt so proud that the words sorta match the gifts.




Grabbing from Facebook is this photo collage of the boys and the gals that Flor made coz I'm too lazy to do it myself.










As mentioned in my previous post, for some periods of time whenever people talked about future events, I would be indifferent because I would have this strange thought that I would no longer be in this world. Christmas was one season I struggled with last year. While I always look forward to basking in the love and warmth of people I care for during this festive season, 2016 was difficult for me considering the bad state I was in. I slowly shared my feelings with more friends and surprisingly, many of them could identify with how I felt. As the year came to an end, I was once again filled with lots of warmth and fuzziness in my heart. I am and will slowly pull myself back to my normal happy self. This is something I'm working towards this year. :)