No, I didn’t forget the Christmas 2011 post…

Before it goes way past Chinese New Year and I have another to-do post to publish, allow me to take you back to the not too distant past and share how we celebrated our Christmas last year.

Our Christmas Eve was spent in Taiping, and although most adults looked forward to the steamboat dinner, the kids’ highlight of the day would be the paddle pool session, courtesy of Ethan & Hannah’s Patrick Ah Chek.  It was an impromptu session, so I did not pack the kids’ swimsuits, but we made do with shorts and tank tops anyways.

It was certainly a welcome activity in the hot scorching weather (if only the pool was bigger, I would have hopped in myself!).  The kids really enjoyed themselves, save for cousin Jonathan, who was taking his afternoon nap.

Definitely a great prequel to the yummy steamboat dinner we had at home that night.  No fancy restaurant could beat a cozy gathering at home with family, and warm food for the tummy…

…and that’s how it came to be…all the screaming and noise died down when the four cousins fell to the temptation of ice cream…

All the bowls had equal amounts of ice cream, but Hannah, no surprise at all, finished her bowl first and asked for seconds…look at her eyeing Phoebe’s bowl…

After-dinner activity for the kids: Uncle Tee Bin busy *hiding* candy canes on the Christmas tree, and then getting the kids to look for them.

Next: gift time!  Because of logistic reasons and because “some people” were too eager to open their presents, we had a first round of gifts that Christmas eve.

We went to church after that, and only came back home after midnight.  The kids were really tired and fell asleep soundly.

And so did I.

On Christmas Day we took a drive to Ipoh, and the kids were very excited to see Ah Ma and Ah Kong again.  It was very apparent that they’d missed my Dad because they kept sticking close to him, especially Hannah.

We had a scrumptious dinner at a restaurant which frankly serves the best chicken chop ever 🙂

It was back home to Penang the next day where we had a few more presents to open.  Ethan had handpicked a present especially for Hannah, from himself:

…and he was visibly touched when he found out that Hannah also had a gift for him.  He was eagerly looking forward to opening it.