Christmas 2017

I think we should be reminded on Christmas that the greatest gift has already been given to us-Jesus (typical Sunday school answer, but it's true). Didn't wake up in time for the xmas service. I feel like I say this every year, but I don't like how Christmas is so heavily commercialised. Like giving and receiving gifts are nice and I still do give gifts (only to a minimal extent), but that's not the real meaning. With some exceptions, I hate getting gifted chocolates, and our family has once again received boxes of your typical chocolates. Also doesn't help that's it's summer in Christmas here, so things probably melt before you even open them. Thank goodness it was a cooler Christmas this year. I'm glad in Australia Christmas is a public holiday, unlike some other countries in the world.

We don't have any family traditions, and have long given up setting my the xmas trip since we would always be on holidays or overseas during high school, so the tree hasn't gone up since primary...and  during uni years I have work, and no one at home is bothered to set it up. One day maybe we'll set up a real fragrant tree once we have time to maintain that sort of stuff. Ended up going to 2 people's places for lunch and dinner. Thankful for people's hospitality, even if I don't really know them.

food spread

Korean sushi and japchae

I still don't really get why people buy prawn's for Christmas, apart from it being an Aussie thing...yday was the first time ever the seafood place had a massive line of people at our local shops. Previous years wasn't as crazy...The jokes inside the xmas crackers are so lame that they are actually funny.

This person's house is massive, like 6 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 3 garages house, and around 3 living rooms. Kids are so lucky to have the space to run around and drive their toy cars. They used to be neighbours on a house 3 doors up, but I hardly talked to them. The houses on this side of my suburb are a lot bigger, and you can tell more people drove to houses in this area for Christmas, cause bigger houses are easier to host more people, whereas our street for empty-ish since the houses are small, so I think people drove to other people's houses for the day...

Toys are so creative these days. It's a chain saw with a moving chain thing.

They have so many toys. In hindsight, my bro and I also had a lot of toys, but almost all of them were hand-me-downs, or accumulated over 15 or so years. The older kid is only 5 and all the living rooms have toys...but I guess they have the space.

Off to the second person's house for late lunch/dinner. I knew some of the people, but majority I didn't know. Even the host son didn't know majority of the people. It's so weird, around 40+ people and you know like less than 10...As one of the adults said, whoever made it inside the property is a friend, even if you have no idea who they are...

someone made gingerbread cookies

One year I will make them...These didn't have enough spice/ginger to it, but they were soft and luckily not too sweet. Those icing piping details are so cute. I have the cutters to make cookies, but you guys know I'm pretty lazy when it comes to these things.

xmas ham

food spread-alfresco buffet style

When the host owns a butcher shop, you're never short of meat or those metal trays to serve food on...I actually didn't stuff myself this year. That bloated feeling isn't a good feeling, so I actually didn't eat a lot. Wine on the other hand...so many good wines and probs had one too many. Good wines are actually so delicious, it just goes down so smoothly, and more flavour. Not like the cheap wines you normally get at uni functions where it's acidic or watered down and you sort of screw your face, but still drink it because it's free/included in your ticket price.

This host has a whole wall of wines. You know people are wine enthusiasts when they buy wines to also earn a lot of bonus Qantas ff points. Other wine enthusiasts have special fridges which are set at wine temperature (8 deg from memory...). Also you would expect about 20 wine glasses at their house for when they invite people over, and can't forget multiple decanters for when you open multiple wines at once. Then normally wine enthusiasts also store other expensive sake/rums/whiskeys on some fancy looking cabinet with their corresponding glassware/cups. Damn, those alcohols all together are so expensive...I love my food and don't mind spending crazy amounts once a year for fine dining, but wine for me is still considered a 'rich persons thing,' and I'm still learning to appreciate it more and learn more about it, so for me it's still not worth opting to have those 'wine pairing' options or even a glass of wine when I dine outside. Even a 'cheap' glass isn't cheap, but the quality is cheap, if that makes sense. Where as if you tag along to go to wine loving people's houses, you try it for free and the quality is better than the cheap quality house wines at restaurants (but not cheap in price). Ok, I should stop rambling on about wine...

 

Do you spot the turkey? (i.e. our xmas turkey for dinner hehe)

I may of appeared a bit savage on my snapchat haha, but nah, I wouldn't have the guts to shoot that down if it was even legal.

homemade hk egg waffle

They had one of those egg waffle machines, and this was actually really nice, slight crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

Risk

My pink troops died after 3 rounds. Obviously did not think properly on how to place them initially. This board game is so old school that I'm pretty sure the last time I checked (10 years ago lol) that they stopped selling it. I guess this remind me of Settlers of Catan, but Catan is more fun. 

And that was my Christmas for this year. I still hope to experience a white Christmas one year, or even just going back to HK to feast with relatives.