Our Christmas Day

I'm so outdated in my postings. I'm probably the last or the only one to post up Christmas happenings past the New Year but I have a perfect excuse. It's still Christmas and today's the 10th day of Christmas.

This year's celebration was only a small do for my friend Bella and her family who has left Malaysia yesterday. She's a sister of my ex-colleague from HK. She came to Malaysia with the HK born but Singaporean citizen hubs, about 12 years ago and settled down here.  Bella, Richard and their 3 princesses are the most adventurous family we've known. They've traveled around Malaysia so well, knows all the nooks and corners of the country and also where the good food are.  

Amber's good friend, Sharon, also joined us for the Christmas brunch.

I was so busy with my fruitcakes and didn't have time to plan for a proper Christmas lunch. Up to 2 days before Christmas, I was debating between lambshank stew or hokkien mee. Lamb shank is interesting and something hubs would have loved but hokkien mee is something I'd cook without much fuss or worry.

Consensus on my FB suggested lamb shanks, so lamb it shall be. Googled a bit here and there.. and brewed out a pot of stew on Christmas eve

 I cooked a simple brunch... roast platter of chicken drumsticks, bacon wrapped sausage, cocktails and potatoes, pasta, egg and dairy free cupcakes, peach jelly and Big Sister's fruitcakes. I ran out of homebaked fruitcakes, my customer took all there is. Anyway, the super sweet fruit cakes tasted a lot better after brushing with brandy and left to cure for a day or two.

 I packed a gingerbread man and candy stick for each kid.

 

 They had a swell time, playing and fooling around with each other. The house was full of.. joyful noise :)

Then on Boxing Day, we got Amber up early to open her presents :)

 

She had pressies from Aunty Annie, Aunty Barbara, Aunty Rachel, Aunty Joanne,  her grandparents and also Papa & Mama.

She was frantically looking for the pressie from Papa & Mama.

and we got her these :

 A ring... with crowns and diamonds !! I knew she love all things ding-a-lings, and when I saw this ring, I had to get it.

and... that was how we spent our Christmas ...

On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree. 

The Weekend Before Christmas

We didn't have any holiday plans for Amber and decided to go Malacca for a short visit. A very last moment decision and since it's also school holidays and Christmas being very near, it wasn't  a wise decision. Malacca was packed, the whole town was congested.

It was flooded.

Flooded with Singaporeans. 

No offense but I see more 'S' car plates than M'sian cars.

We're lucky to get a room through a contact as all other hotels were fully booked. We left for Malacca early Saturday morning, with this in mind :

 Yummylicious lip smacking chicken rice balls. 

This place is where locals go and recommended by my colleague, Anthony. After previous disappointed visits to the chicken rice balls at Jonker's Street, Anthony checked out this place for me and warned me to be there early. The tau-keh closes shop when her chicken rice balls sells out and that can be as early as noon, depending on the crowd. I can't read Chinese but this is easy to locate. Follow the sign to Pusat Bandaraya, past the Malacca Hospital, next to Wang Food Court, once you see a makan shack under a big tree and you're spot on !

We met up with Thomas, Joanne and Sharon at Malacca. Thomas was our tour guide of honour and other than the chicken rice place, which was on my priority list, I let him take the lead on where to eat and what to do. .

He took us for a hike up St John's Fort. Perfect to burn off the chicken rice.

 Hiking up to St. John's fort, we found these saga trees, a reminiscence of my childhood, where saga tree grows in abundance near the stone hall of my primary school :

I collected a handful home. Amber wants to do something artsy with it.. perhaps stick it on a cardboard to the shape of a butterfly. I have better ideas. I might just sew five stones with them. I miss my childhood days of playing five stones by the corridor of my classroom.

 

and everyone roped in to help pick up the tiny red saga seeds.

 the kids were too happy to playing catch ...

..

and laughing...

and screaming too.

 Amber plucked some flowers and asked me to clip to her hair.

 On our way down, we found someone selling fresh coconut. A refreshing treat for all of us.

 

And the daddies did something silly, they asked the girls to climb up the pinang tree :P

and the 2 little monkeys tried and called for help when they realised it wasn't easy being a monkey :)

 Our next stop was A Farmosa Fort and St Paul's Church..

Again, an interesting photography place with lotsa space for kids to run around

 

By late afternoon, the kids were flat out and so were we. Took a short nap, showered and hit the streets again.

Wanted to take the River Cruise but the queue was too long.

The kids were in tears, they could only see the barge go past and waved to each barge :(

We hopped on to the Portuguese Settlement at Ujong Pasir.

This one is a must during Christmas time. Most of the houses (at least 90%) was decorated with Christmas splendor. I've never seen such elaborate decorations, really amazing.

 

As usual, it was very crowded and many residence were expecting tourist, we chatted with some and they told us all lighting and decoratives are at their own expense. No sponsorship from the state government except for a few houses with Aik Cheong, Julie biscuits or Tiger logo. We only made a short stop, take some pics and head off for supper at Jonker's Street's Geographer's Cafe.

Guess who had most fun at Geographer's Cafe ?

 

After a few jug of beer, the daddies took their princesses to the dance floor and disco-ed away. 

We moms, too old for the dance floor, just relaxed, had a few drinks and took pics.

When the daddies got tired of dancing (they are old too !!!), the girls took on the dance floor 

Look at Amber, it was already past midnight and she's still jiving away with Sharon..

The next morning, after breakfast, we went straight for the cruise. The girls has been nagging about it all night and chanting in their sleep and there's no way we can return to KL without boarding the river cruise.

We were early, we got our tickets and waited for around 15 minutes for our turn :

 The cruise is 45 minutes long and goes along the Malacca River... to and fro. Something exciting for the girls but I fell asleep during the journey *yawn*

 

Then hubs took some photos of the girls near the riverfront while I sneaked out for shopping at Jonker's Street. 

Then Thomas took us for the famous Malaccan pork satay ..... it's slightly off Jonker's Street, and it was good.. the gravy is different from our usual Satay. Sweet and spicey with lots of blended pineapples. 

Very nice satay and definitely worth a trip back here again.

We left Malacca in the afternoon and got caught in a massive jam getting out of Malacca, again with Singaporean cars at our front, back and sides.. sigh.. took us an hour to get to Ayer Keroh toll.

That was our weekend before Christmas ! 

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Soy Ice Cream

I've finally found the perfect ice cream for her from a Shojikiya, a  Japanese food speciality store. 

Vanilla soy ice cream at RM5.90 per tub.

Rich, creamy, tasty vanilla soy ice cream

egg free, dairy free.

This is the best, she said.

Finally, a tub of comfort food for her, and cheap too. Now, I'm on a vanilla soy hunt. Many outlets have run out of stock. I'll surely stock up some at home soon.

She's been taking 'approved' ice cream from : 

Gelatomio -  only soy apple flavour
Gelatissimo - all 99% fat free sorbets. the 95% fat free sorbets are has slight milk content
New Zealand Naturals - all fruit sorbets.

I have to be very careful, not all fruit sorbets are dairy-free and egg-free. Once, a promoter at Mid Valley was giving out free gelato samples. I asked if there's milk and the guy claimed.. No ! No Milk ! Guarantee !

After Amber had sampled, he said.. no milk, only yogurt ! I so wanted to SMACK him with a spade. I have to be careful who I asks, some blank looks don't convince me but now I try to google on the product before I let her try.

Now, I've found a gem.. Shojikiya's soy vanilla.. tastes like the real thing. :)

On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Bits and Bops - Pre Christmas :)

It's not too late to wish stopovers here a very Merry Christmas. There's 12 days of Christmas and today is only the 3rd.. and so what did my true love gave to me ? 

**nothing**

lololololol.........

Well, I feel I should post up all my backdated post before the New Year starts, just like Annie. Let's see if I can get it done. I have say... 4 days left and so here's starting my blog diarrhea with what we did pre Christmas that I had not blog about before : 

was busy baking fruitcakes for my sales.. business has been good :) I'm really fussy and made sure the fruits has to be well macerated.

 then repeat orders came in last minute... in blocks of 4 or 6... ***help***.. on some days, I was baking till 1am in the morning. I thank god for the blessings endowed on me. 

rezeki jangan ditolak, betul tak ?

I truly apologize for orders that came in right before Christmas that I had it to turn down. I don't believe in shortchanging my customers and taking shortcuts just to get business.

I had fruitcakes stuffed everywhere, my home and office. No grocery shopping as there isn't space for any.  The hubs volunteered his wine chiller for storage and I shall keep that in mind next year :)

then... I baked gingerbread man for my clients and friends. For everything I bake, I had to bake an egg-free, dairy-free version for Amber, I can't be possibly excluding her from the fun and yummy stuff.

One some crazy nights, I baked 3 batches of gingerbread man.

My sis and niece was in town. I was juggling between baking time and shopping time with her. Their visit is a blessing, I roped in my niece, Li, to help with the gingerbread man decorations. She's way way more creative than me :)

these are the allergy free ones. Made them with margarine and egg replacer but somehow I couldn't get the royal icing right, lack of volume and texture but nevertheless, she loved them to bits :

 

My niece, Li, the very creative one, amongst us, came up with different designs for each gingerbread man and I only had to copy one which I liked :)

  

My sis, gave up decorating after few failed attempts.. blame it on 'lou far' , she said but she's a great help in packing up the gingies.

Amidst all the baking and busy-ness, we found some time hit the malls to absorb all things Christmassy

Amber's cousin sister, Li, was in town and she's of great help in distracting Amber away from me. Amber only wants Li Li cheh cheh.. she insists on seated next to her, insist on holding her hand.. etc etc.  much to my delight !

 More coming up....

On the third day of Christmas, My true love gave to me, Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves,

....... and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Very Pretty Pretty Gingerbreads

Having had a disastrous attempt with the gingerbread-man-on-the-tree project, a very very kind and sweet lady - Javapot, personally made me some gingerbread man to hang on our tree.

Look closer .... aren't they too good to eat  ? Look again... real close :

 These very pretty pretty gingerbread man are hand stitched by Javapot.. Thank you so much.. My tree is filled with a special selection of ornaments we love very much and your gingerbread man tops the list !

 Pretty eh ? I truly admire your fine craftsmanship. I feel so proud to have the handsewn gingies hanging on my tree.

 Our tree, filled with all things nice and pretty.

Thank you Javapot. Thank you millions ! Wishing you, your hubs and master prince very Merry Christmas filled with love, good food and all things nice !

p/s  you got me started on sugar cookies already !