Christmas Eve

This year we've decided to have a Christmas do in my parents' house on the night before Christmas. Usually we have it in my cousin's house but this year, my mom volunteered to open her house and only family members are invited. There were close to 50 of us who came for this party.

My mother cooked about 5 or 6 dishes, Aunt Chris brought mashed potatoes and garlic bread, Aunt Zainab cooked her famous beef rendang, Aunt Sally made apple crumble, Aunt Terry brought a huge roasted turkey, Rachel made mushroom soup and jelly and I of course baked chocolate brownies. Rachel also brought another roasted turkey, much smaller than Aunt Terry's. What did Esther contributed?.... Well... I think she bought buns, ham and had Tusi sliced the tomatoes and cucumbers.

Jason and Neela came back to Malaysia for this season. They are from Canada and whenever they can, they will fly back to Malaysia to be with Neela's family.

Jason is our official "turkey carver". So far he has carved turkey for 3 Christmas seasons.

International food. We have beef rendang (Malaysian), mixed veg (Chinese style), mushroom soup, garlic bread, buns (western)... and a whole lot more I mentioned earlier.

This is my plate. There were so many nice dishes and my stomach could only take that much. :(

My gingerbread house. At the end of the day we tore down the house and threw everything away. My family is not big on eating gingerbread cookies, let alone the house, so everything went to the garbage bag.

At close to midnight we saw some fireworks displayed in the sky. This is my first time taking pictures of fireworks. I must say, I was pretty surprised at what this camera could do.

My mom's house, all beautifully decorated for Christmas. This year, she didn't really decorate much. Usually she would have 4 decorated trees and a snow (by using cotton) village. This year, she only put up 2 trees and there wasn't any snow villages.

The last of the family members went back at 12.15am. It was a tiring day. I helped my parents to clean up after that, and left while they were washing the porch area.