Christmas Eve Dinner

Every year, ever since I got married, we'd have two Christmas Eve dinners to go to. This year, Rajen's side of the family decided to celebrate Christmas in Penang.

My parents opened their home for us to gather for a family reunion (although we do get to see each other every week in church, it's nothing like having good food and fellowship in a comfortable setting)

It was a pot bless dinner where every family brings one dish. We planned to asked someone to roast a whole lamb but when we called up about a week ago, Mr Foo (who has been our lamb supplier since 2002) said that we were a little too late. He did mention that he needed at least 14 days notice for each order.

Thomson was supposed to get a roast turkey from SU Club but was disappointed to find out that they don't sell stuffed turkeys anymore.

Mum was a little disappointed when she was told about the lamb and turkey.

That night itself, Rajen and I went to Kensington to have dinner with Jo and Jeremy. We found out that Kensington do have a promotion on roast turkeys and we placed an order for our dinner party.

The next day, mum told me that Aunty Terry managed to order a roast turkey from Cold Storage. Aiks!!!! Somehow, we forgot to tell her that we had already ordered a turkey from Kensington.

We ended up having TWO turkeys for our family Christmas dinner do.

Aunty Lily made beef rendang. Smelt GREAT but I couldn't eat it cause it would send my blood pressure to the roof.

Aunty Chris made garlic bread and mashed potatoes (yummy!!!!!!)

Aunty Sally made apple crumble (yummy!!!!!)

Sharon made the salad (yummy!!!!)

Eunice made her award winning brownies :)

Mum cooked several dishes. :)

With slightly more time on my hands, I decided to make jelly and mushroom soup.

So, as you can imagine, there was enough food to feed an entire HUNGRY army.

Let's see... who came?

The Yeoh clan (about 30+ people), Voonf Fui's side, Rajen's mother and sister, Bro Chow and an elderly couple. Altogether there were more than 50 of us.

Jason of course, had the honour of carving the turkey. Without him, I think we'd just serve turkeys on two plates and everyone would make a huge mess carving them.

About 1/2 an hour before midnight, Rajen and the children had a question and answer session. Some of the questions asked were:-

Brian : How many presents are there under the tree?

Mae-Z : How many years did it take for the Bible to be written?

Sze-En : Count the number of snowflakes on the Christmas tree

Joelle : How many things are there in the world? (Answer: 100 billion)

How many stars can you fit into a star? (Answer : 2,000)

Joelle was so cute. Most of her questions do not have a definite answer and she made them up.

We did a countdown for Christmas before everyone headed back home. I was supposed to help my parents clean the place up but I managed to "escape" from it cause I needed to go to Rajen's mum's place.

Well, it's always good to have two other sisters who could help mum when I can't be there :)

Oh yes!! Another thing. Uncle Norman asked me where David was and for a moment, I wondered, "David who?" Then I realised he was talking about David Tan, my brother. What I heard earlier from Eunice was that we forgot to invite David when we were planning for this dinner. He needed a few days notice to arrange time off from work to be with us. Thus, David wasn't there at the party. :(