Christmas reviews

I was browsing through some of the pictures archived in my hard disk. And it's interesting how Christmas marked the end and beginning of each year - instead of the actually New Year. Perhaps because it's my birthday month as well :)
As I reviewed the years, it's amazing how each year can be so different. It's this joyous season that we truly want to remember what is the real gift.

04: we have our new home ready thus welcomed the Agape choir to carol at our place. It was lovely.

05 : We enjoyed white pre-christmas in Korea - Snow experience. Gifts for friends, kids were mostly from Korea. we enjoyed food at a Messianic restaurant with the BS people.

06: I had a chance to taste what "tai-tai" lifestyle for the whole month. I had more time to do personalised gifts. Also did alot of shopping, outing with the kids besides doing a couple trip to take in the cold cold weather in Macau, went to a relative's 15million house to play for the entire day.

07: Our couple trip was in NY. We chiong the Midnight madness thanksgiving sale thus gifts were from the US trip. BS christmas gathering was bowling and eat at CSC. However, on Christmas day itself, had a big fight with hubby - urgh, had a really poor day itself.

This year...
Change to a new work place thus no chance to plan for an overseas trip proper. We've decided that the kids will not get any gifts this year but we are secretly buying gifts for the adults. Hubby and I also did more volunteering work.
- volunteered at SingTel for their joint christmas gathering with MYMCA for the older folks. It was quite enriching and it's very easy to do. Prepare deco and layout, performed for each other, had a session of lunch and interacted.
- volunteered to send gifts to prisons ministry people. We were apprehensive at first but hubby really was helpful in follow up and reaching out. I am so proud of him.
Well, we will see what happens this year - next week!

Holiday and simple fun

This year's holiday has no big bang, it's road trip to Malaysia again. To Sunway Lagoon and Malacca. It was such a fun trip despite it's simplicity.

The rides at amusement park were so good - we did the colorado splash, 360 degree viking ride, roller coaster, the wave pool, the tunnel slides, the "F1" slide. Hubby and I were like on honeymoon since the kids had their own friends to get around with. With occasional times to play foster parents to our friend's 3 yo and 1 yo.

Ice skating was the ultimate - bring your gears (gloves and socks) and pay RM13 to have the whole day at the skating ring! We got to witness some nice filming of ice-hockey game - totally cool. I think Natasha has some good chance to get on to get good skating skills much faster than her brother.

Food wise, we finally tasted the REAL authentic Ampang Yong Tau Fu, the kids tasted and saw chicken rice balls whilst we enjoyed the assam fish head. Sedap!

When we came home, a gecko also wanted a free ride to sg.

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We finally house a nice cage at abt S$20 and adopted some 2 weekold hammies. Welcome babies..

.....

I've anticipated the day to come and it became one of the worst day of the year. It seems to me that my spouse cannot live without a helper. Without any meaning to complain or whatsoever, I did most of the housechores. The children can tell that I am doing alot and tries to do their part voluntarily. The spouse also does some but really, I clean, mop, wash, dust, cook ... amongst Christmas preparation for his side of party (traditionally, I'd buy, wrap the presents, cook a dish for the gathering for his family). This year, it's just too much pressure for me to do everything in perfection. The maid was schedule to come back on Christmas eve. Honestly, I don't know what happened. We bought a return flight for her and it's holiday so there is no way to check if she actually board the plane to Singapore. The spouse literally went into shock and complained how badly I handled the maid thing. We made a mistake by not buying insurance and if she came back but go missing, we'd need to cough up 5k. I told him that there is really nothing that we can do except to move on through Christmas and I will settle everything on 26th. He gave me hell on eve, not wanting to go Church but was "force" to attend because his nephews are going. He made tons of critical comments but I also had to add fuel to the fire by opposing to his critics. He was mad, I was mad. I tried to loosen him up and when he didn't, bullets from me start flying. The was quite a bad Christmas eve.

Christmas day came and I thought by morning, it should be okay. After a swifty clean up of the house, I started to dress my girl up so that we can get the stuff ready for the christmas gathering and as I was ready to go, he announced that he wants to have time to iron his clothes! because he had no work shirts to wear! @#$%#$%
There was 2 pants and 4 shirts in the ironing basket. He has at least 20 shirts in the wardrobe and no lack of pants, I even handwash his underwear so that he has the best! I made some really nasty comments and sulk. He did not make any point to make the suituation better and I decided at the point to sleep through the day. I was really tired. However, I had hoped that he could convince me out of it when he decided to give me the appreciation.

He didn't and threatened that if I didn't start for the gathering, he would boycott going to MY family gathering. That was it, we cold war and verbal fought from 10 am to 8.30pm. My children were already at the gathering so that really gave us lots of time to fight.

We've made up but even more so only when I called the airline and confirmed that the maid did not board the flight. He managed to cancel her work permit. I brought in a temporary maid and basically I took care of ... whatever needs taking care of.

And just for records, during that afternoon, I ironed all the clothes.

Christmas 2007, it'd be a day I want to forget.