Four-and-a-half Holidays

I realized that I did not blog a single time over the holidays! Well, once between Halloween and Thanksgiving...but I didn't upload any pictures! So I figured I'd just do it all in one fell swoop. Prepare to travel from October 31st-January 1st in the next few minutes! :)

HALLOWEEN

So they do have Halloween here, but it's mostly just a holiday for young adults who dress up and go to bars or clubs, but kids don't dress up or go trick-or-treating or anything. Still, Dan and I thought we should do something. I don't really like loud clubs, so instead we went to a beachside bar on Sentosa island. You could either dress up or wear yellow, which was the theme. We thought about dressing up, but we a) were afraid nobody else was going to dress up, and b) kind of ran out of time to get costumes. So we just went with the yellow theme. This is actually a photo of the free photo that they took and gave us copies of. It had been rainy that day, so there weren't very many people there, so we just got a drink and then walked on the beach for awhile, which was super nice. Very low-key but enjoyable although not-very-Halloweeny Halloween!

THANKSGIVING

Here's dinner!

So no, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Singapore, of course. But I wanted to! So Dan and I decided to have a party at his house and invite all his friends, and I cooked. Yay! There were 13 people including us. It was a big project, and it required many trips to multiple grocery stores, starting to cook the night before, and careful over-scheduling--you see, Dan has a small countertop plug-in oven, so you can only fit in one thing at a time. I couldn't even get both pumpkin pies in at the same time!

I was pretty pleased that the turkey turned out well, despite the fact that I was using a plug-in over that I'd never used and I didn't have a meat thermometer or pop-up timer. Eek!

Yes, I should have taken pictures before we ate all (most) of the food, but things were so crazy that I didn't get around to it until later. I tried making Green Bean Casserole for the first time, and it actually turned out well! Also, the sweet potatoes with marshmallows was surprisingly good, the gravy came out well, and a few people even enjoyed the salad! (They don't really eat raw vegetables here...)

So here are some post-dinner shots of people trying to digest their food-babies.

 

2.5-YEARIVERSARY

Not really a holiday, but I figured I'd throw it in here. As of November 29, Dan and I had been together for two and a half years. We tend to celebrate half years, particularly since we're not always in the same place/country on our actual anniversary. Dan took me to a nice Italian restaurant. He also surprised me by recruiting a friend that I had gone shopping with to help him track down a dress that I mentioned I had tried on and wanted, but waited too long and when I went back to the same outlet it was gone. Him and my friend found the dress at another outlet and he bought it for me--it's the dress I'm wearing in the picture. He's the best boyfriend ever. Also featured in this picture are our wonderful desserts--that chocolate cake thing with liquid chocolate on the inside, a la mode, and a wonderful panna cotta. My main course was a fantastic gnocchi. All-around score!


CHRISTMAS

 

 

Pictures of my Christmas tree! Dan and I went out and bought it. He physically took it out of the box and set it up, and I strung the lights and made all the ornaments by hand. It was pretty fun, and the overall effect isn't bad at all. (As of today, the tree is still up. I REALLY need to take it down this weekend!)

I made a small reprise of Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas Eve for us, Dan's parents, and Karthi. Not too much this time, just turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and green beans Greek style. I didn't even bake a pie! We did have log cake for dessert though, which can be good or bad depending on whether or not you're lucky when you pick the cake out! Here is Mr. Ling attempting the traditional patriarchal carving of the turkey. Look, they even broke out the nice plates and glasses!

After dinner Mr. and Mrs Ling went to their church, but Dan and I decided to try out the big Anglican church, St. Andrews. It was pretty good.

The next morning Dan and his parents went to church again, but I stayed home to talk to Mom, Dad, Bobbie, and Claire, since it was their Christmas Eve. We had the Skype specially set up, and I opened their presents to me and they opened my presents to them. We were afraid my package wouldn't get to them in time, but it came on Christmas Eve afternoon! Thanks, Jesus :) And thanks to my family for making the effort to allow me to feel as much as I could like I was home for Christmas.

Dan joined us for a bit when he got home from church, and then in the afternoon it was time for him to open his present. I had made him a scavenger hunt with small presents and clues (in little bottles) along the way and the main one at the end, which was an iPod shuffle Special Edition (with his name engraved on it). The clues were in the pattern of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Good fun was had by all.

 Dan studying the first clue.

In the evening we went out to two parties and ate too much Christmas dinner. (Both hosts were Dan's Army friends...or to be more specific, Dan's Army friends' mothers and maids. ;) The first dinner was half Western and half Chinese barbecue. The second was half Western and half Indian. It was heavenly.) I don't have any pictures, although I can assure you that Dan and I looked the same as we do in our 2.5 Year picture above, because we were both wearing practically the same thing. The second house we went to actually had tons of Christmas decorations, inside and out, which is very rare in Singapore so I was SUPER EXCITED when I got there, even though it was late at night and I was a bit tired. Altogether it was a wonderful Christmas.

But don't forget Boxing Day! That's the day after Christmas, which is when many people actually open their presents, if they do presents. (Dan's family doesn't really.) What a wonderful thing. It's just like an extra day of Christmas! This was the day Dan gave me my present, which was an AWESOME spa treatment that lasted 2.5 hours!!! I was so surprised. Once again, best boyfriend ever.

NEW YEAR'S

I actually didn't take any pictures of New Year's Eve because we were being super lame and didn't do anything cool. Dan had been feeling sick recently and we weren't really interested in going to a club, and nobody was having a party, so we ended up buying some bulk gummi candies and a Bacardi breezer and watching several episodes of How I Met Your Mother until midnight, when we promptly went to sleep. :)

On actual New Year's Day we had a big Chinese meal at Dan's house with his family (his second sister was home from college), thanks to Merry who cooked all sorts of awesome stuff, and we used the good matching table settings and everything! Then we ate "traditional" Chinese New Year dessert: icey-slushy canned peaches and canned lychee fruit, which I thought was gross, which is nothing strange because Chinese people suck at dessert. No offense--they rock at the regular food, it's just the sweet stuff where they're a bit lacking. All around, though, it was a good New Years.

Sorry I didn't take as many pictures as I should have. However, the holidays aren't over! Next month in February we have Chinese New Year AND Valentine's Day--which just so happen to be the exact same day this year! Interesting...so I'll try to take better photo documentation and share those holidays with you soon!