Christmas presents galore!

I have always tried to maintain my family Christmas tradition of only opening our presents on Christmas Day itself. I am such a stickler for this! Nic thinks it is kinda strange. Jay probably thinks Mommy is torturing him. But nonetheless… tradition rules, especially for this! I also think it is so much more fun to open ALL your presents at one shot rather than opening as you get them. Fun for Mommy, obviously. Jay had a harder time understanding the rationale. Haha!

I did make a small concession, and allowed Jay to choose a present to open on Christmas Eve.

 

Auntie Sharon would be glad to know that without the slightest hesitation, Jay decided to open the elephant puppet! He even remembered which wrapper it was in!

But Christmas soon came, and the onslaught started!

 

Still in his pyjamas and with bed-hair to boot, Jay started selecting which present to open. He didn’t go for the largest presents, but rather chose the presents for the wrapper! Haha!

With each present opened came the insistent, “Can I play with this NOW?”

 

This is just SOME of the maaaaany gifts Jay received! He is such a blessed kid, with so many good Uncles and Aunties who adore him and splurged on him. Thank you for your generosity!

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Christmas comes early!

… especially with my little prince in da house!

He’s getting togged out for his party at Little Big!

 

I think he would have ADORED a real Santa costume, but I couldn’t get my hands on any!

Even the prince gets camera-shy at times…

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Christmas presents update…

This Christmas has been a season of much giving and buying and present-wrapping.

And I realised that my earlier estimate of 80 presents is off. We are truly blessed to be surrounded by so many close friends! Hahaha!

I just did a quick sum of how many presents I had already bought, and the figure came up to a whopping 56 presents for kids, and 38 presents for friends/colleagues of Nic & I. And after thinking through, I realised I still had another 8 more presents to get! Yikes… And to think I’d thought that I had completed my Christmas shopping already!

God bless our wallets!

[And no… not all the presents are wrapped yet. *sob!*]

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The buying’s easy. The wrapping’s the killer.

This year, I told myself I would not make the mistake of previous years.

You know, the mistake of presents bought at the last-minute, and endless trips to the mall to get “oh-my-gosh-I-forgot-to-buy-for-so-and-so-oh-just-kill-me” gifts.

So this year, I was a real good girl.

I married my online shopping prowess with the mighty credit card. It was mighty then, just mighty thin now.

I scoured my favourite online shops, and actually managed to complete a good 75% of my Christmas presents online! Woohoo!

I was beaming from my amazing Christmas feat – by the beginning of December, I gloated at the thought that I had nothing to be worried about when it came to this year’s Christmas.

Nothing, that is, except the wrapping.

My convoluted list of which-present-is-for-who was written is such garbled language that I was the only one able to decipher the code. And so I was. The only one to wrap the presents. I hauled my heavily pregnant butt to sit on the floor for a good two and a half hours, and here was what I had to show for numb legs.

Wrappers courtesy of Ikea.

Roll of pretty gold ribbon.

 

And ta-da, the completed prezzies! I wrapped almost 40 presents in all! Yippee to me! (And that means just another 40 more to go… Lovely.)

Well, here’s hoping your Christmas preparations go smoother this year as well!

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Poor Rudolph

 

I was singing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer to Jay when he started stumping me with hard questions.

Mommy: “… all of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names, they never let poor Rudolph join in…”

Jay: “Why poor Rudolph, Mommy?”

Mommy: “Erm. Cos the other reindeer didn’t play with him.”

Jay: “Why?”

Mommy: “Because they kept laughing at him.”

Jay: “Why?”

Mommy: “Because he had a bright red nose.”

Jay: “Why?”

Mommy: “That’s how God made him, dear.”

Jay: (changing tack) “Rudolph should play?”

Mommy: “Of course!”

Jay: “The other reindeer shouldn’t play?”

Mommy: “They should play together.”

Jay: “Why?”

Mommy: “Because that’s what good reindeers should do. You play with your friends too, correct?”

Jay: “Hm.”

Finally satisfied! Haha… Who knew a little reindeer could spark off so much interest in my son!

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After the tree, now what?

Now that our gorgeous tree is up, we then busied ourselves with putting up the decorations. And we bought all the baubles from three places… Ikea (2 huge buckets-full of silvers baubles), Tangs (preeeetty blue baubles, the silver star atop the tree and some gorgeous other knick-knacks) as well as some other baubles from a wholesale shop from The Verge.

Here’re some close-ups of these pretty baubles!

Jay also helped us in the decorations!

And the final product?

Ta-da!

It’s official now… Christmas has descended upon our family! Jay has taken to singing Christmas carols as well!

December’s going to be an awesome month!

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Christmas tree’s up!

I adore the season of Christmas. The carols, the atmosphere, the presents… it’s a fabulous season of love, gifts and giving! And to me, a good Christmas tree is the epitomizes the Christmas spirit! After four years of marriage, this is our first nice tree. 

Not exciting, I know. These were the boxes our tree and decorations came in, courtesy of the good folks at Tangs!

Daddy then rolled up his sleeves and went to work on assembling the tree, a gorgeous black pine with silver sparkles at the end.

Slowly but surely building…

It was a long, hard process with Daddy setting it up himself!

Mommy was busy with the camera, and Jay? Well, he was just busy pottering around and entertaining us with his toys while we Daddy toiled.

But finally… Daddy accomplished his mission!

And our tree (albeit bare) is up!

Check out our actual decorations in my next entry!

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Christmas Presents Galore

Jay’s mountain…

went though a turmoil early Christmas morning…

which ended in a mess of wrappers…

and created a wonderful mess!

From his favourite – Little Tikes’ Snuggle Bug…

To musical instruments…

To books…

To more of his favourite puzzles!

Thanks to the many uncles and aunties who has given fantastic presents to Jay!

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Feels Like Christmas!

I loved the Candlelight Service in church today…

It really makes it feel simply so… Christmas-sy!

 

This is one of my favourite carols and I love these two versions! Enjoy!

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