Christmas 2009

Alright, celebrated Mom's birthday yesterday and day before, though her birthday is actually today. wtf.

And I still haven't slept yet, not that I can't sleep, well, I only started to feel sleepy after 3am and my usual sleeping hour back in London was midnight, so still trying to adjust my bodyclock. But not sure, I'm refusing to sleep at this hour.

Maybe it'll make me feel like I'm back in London, living London time, wtf.

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Oh, sorry little commercial break insert here. Just a little one.

You know that Twitter package that Channel X has? Yep, just want to remind you that RM1 per week allows you the service of sending AND receiving unlimited tweets from Twitter to your phone. You don't have to be a registered Twitterer to be a Follower, so follow me on my Twitter. :D

Recently I just got myself an Iphone from London and has grown addicted to it since unlocking it (waiting for the actual code to be sent to me from O2 for a legal unlock, but the code won't come in 2 weeks and I couldn't wait, so unlock first, then restore and unlock legally when I receive the code).

I have been updating my Twitter like crazy from my Iphone, like how I was addicted updating tweets from my Blackberry Curve when I first got it. LOL.

Trust me, one can get hooked too easily.

So now I am going to register both mobile numbers so no matter which phone I update through SMS, it can go straight to my Twitter account. Cool eh? You can add up to five numbers.
(I know you don't need SMS to update Twitter from Iphone, but who knows sometimes I might want to update it using SMS right? When there's no wi-fi).

Ok end commercial. (erm.. not so short update afterall, side-tracked a bit)

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Anyway, before it gets too late (wtf, everything is too late on my blog anyhow, heh), here are the Christmas photos of 2009 in London.




First, there were the pre-Christmas dinner celebrated two days earlier at my fifth aunt's place.







My dad comes from a HUGE family, like 13 siblings or something like that. And my fourth and fifth aunts live in England.

Come to think of it, my mom comes from a huge family too, 10 or 12 siblings or somewhere there?

Imagine the amount of cousins I have, I think I lost count of them years ago. There were years I'd meet new cousins I never knew I have or connected to, it's so bizarre and it's no news anymore. -.-


My cousin in the kitchen looking for wine


I only ever met my English cousins less than 5 times in my life. There were Elaine, James and Leeling who were born in England itself. And a whole bundle of them scattered all over the UK.


This is Elaine. Do we look alike?





My aunt used to own this huge 13-room? mansion that I adored, and only ever visited once when I was 14, in London. It was the ideal English mansion with stone fireplace and stone stove in the kicthen, enough living room space to fill 5 families.

But then she sold it and bought this cute "little" 4-bedroom house and decorated it as if it's a princess cottage.


Her room


Because it was so difficult to get everyone together on Christmas day itself (with each having his/her own plans), fifth aunt decided to host her Christmas dinner early.




No idea how long she cooked that day, but the meal was filling and utterly delicious, enough to feed 20 people. (There were less than 15?)


pork ribs were sooo good. OMG


She also made desserts.




Needless to say, she's an amazing cook.

That evening I met a whole bunch of cousins-thrice-remove that I have never met before. Like what's new right? Technically they're cousins of my cousins, so, erm... well.. can they still be considered as my cousins (thrice-remove or not?).


Then my baby arrived on Christmas eve from Malaysia (yay~), I almost thought he couldn't make it for the day on time which made me almost wanna cry. Sniff.

Since I was staying over at my fourth aunt's place, naturally on Christmas Day itself I was celebrating with them.





uncle sonny playing with his collections of Apple's. -..-


We gathered all our presents and placed it the night before under the Christmas tree.




Actually I placed mine there before I even left for Europe three weeks before.

Not sure if this is the same everywhere, but Christmas dinner at my aunt's place starts at 2pm, and last well until night time.

I thought it was odd because, well, 2pm is lunch isn't it? But then she insisted that it's Christmas dinner, so dinner it was.




My cousin leeling was really anxious the whole morning to tear open all the pressies under the Christmas tree, but we were made to change into nice clothing for the day itself. Just like Chinese New Year.




Something I didn't expect as I used to watch family opening up their presents in their PJs and night gowns on those American movies. And I couldn't remember what I wore to open the presents when I was in London for Christmas 11 years ago. Ermmm...


Photos with the tree!


my baby and I






xoxo



dearest cousin Leeling



photo with the family


And then it's present time!!!




My aunt got down to scout for her present while Leeling already dived for her first pressie.

I was still looking for mine.




Then I spotted it!




And was figuring out what's inside. *flip flip*


I started gathering all mine and piled them up in one corner before opening them up one by one *possessive*.




My baby also got his pressies.


the large pink 3-tier present was from me ^^


Let me see, I got a set of eye comestic which includes mascara, eye curler, eyebrow pencil and palates of eye shadows, set of nail polish, a bronzer and cheek brush, wine and perfume, a bag, a necklace, another perfume, two pairs of boots *gleam*, and er... er.. shit I can't remember. Oh well.

Am I that girlish to all of you? Hehe. I love them all! Thank you!!


Now to show off my fourth aunt's cooking.

My fourth aunt has one of the most legendary cooking skills one can ever witness.

She can go into the kitchen, fiddle around for 15 minutes, and boom! A dish.




I've seen her shuffling around in her kitchen and next 3o mins she presented the best crackling pork I've ever tasted on the table.




It's like she's a magician or something. I really do wonder how she did it. She told me the crackling pork takes 3 hrs, but then she wasn't even in the kitchen that long?!!!

This was our Christmas turkey, the traditional "bird food" for the festival.







And one of my favourites from her kitchen, roast pork (crackling pork remained my top fav).




Then at the last minute, she whipped up some fresh cocktail shrimps (in 5 minutes!) with dressings as appetizer. Yum~




Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable, decent and quiet Christmas dinner (er.. lunch?). We went out for a walk later in the cold winter to burn some fat. Haha.

It was perfect for me because I have my baby over there to spend Christmas with (in London).




How was your Christmas last year?