Christmas eve was spent...

Feeding Papa meatballs at one of our favourite restaurants, Oosters... (they sell really nice mussels, which my parents enjoy).

Flame's third Christmas celebration

It's nice to see how the company has grown from just a three-man operation in 2005 to the current 7.5 staff outfit (0.5 because Joy's stringing for us from Australia). And what's even nicer is that we've got ex-employees who're still in touch with the rest of the team.

(Clockwise: Jack who's now in Fairfax, Chien Way who's now in STB, Gary who's gone off to be a daddy, Samuel who wears Crocs in the office, sweet Michelle who gets hit on all the time, Kelyn who is more bilingual than anyone else in the office, super partner Florence, uber talented Resse, and moi)

A shimmering Christmas 2008

We almost never had to buy our own wrapping paper to wrap Christmas presents in the past. Presents were always gift wrapped by the kind people at the gift wrapping counters, which means you end up having shopping centre-branded wrappers.

How convenient, and totally uncreative.

We must apologise to our friends and relatives who received bleah-looking wrappers from us in the past. I must say having pretty, personally-wrapped presents say a lot more. So when Aileen gave me an early Christmas present wrapped in this gorgeous holographic paper, I HAD to ask her where she bought it--Watson's!

Paper is quality is good and thick, and there's a variety of designs to choose from (e.g. stars, snow flakes, santa claus and reindeers etc). Best of all, it costs only S$1.95 per roll!

They're all for me?

Kai probably didn't know what was going on except that suddenly, there were plenty of boxes and paper for him to suck on. For this Christmas, we bought him books. He's already starting to disgest every single word.

Our best X'mas present yet

To celebrate Christmas with Terence's family, we went to Kuriya at Raffles City (Basement 1). Kuriya's fare is always good value for money, and this particular outlet didn't disappoint. The setting is a little more posh than the one at Shaw Tower and the service, excellent.

Here's another family portrait and one would think we had switched roles. Kai looked sane and mature, while Terence and I looked like we didn't have screws in the right place. Anyhow...

Kai's the best Christmas present ever.

Food wise:
One dish to try, and which wowed Terence, at Kuriya was the claypot stewed pork belly that was part of a fancy-named Kuriya set. Very flavourful and the fats actually tasted like lean meat. It was too yummy to resist.

X'mas with Uncle KW & Aunty Patricia

Went to Vila'ge, China Square, with my side of the family to celebrate Christmas. It's been a long time since my brother and Pat saw Kai. Although he's starting to have a bit of stranger anxiety, Kai took to them ok. :)