Christmas in Asia

Once again I failed to come home for Christmas and it bothers me. This year was not nearly as bad as last year when I had to work all week for Christmas but even though we had a lot of fun I still feel the distance to a real Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had a party in my flat; it was Joyce's and Man's idea so of course they were there, Janice, Kate and Ariel came too and Kate brought her boyfriend Tony, Joyce also invited a mutual friend of theirs, Wilson, and Almen and Lone came too, so we were 6 girls and 4 guys, which was a lot better mix than I had ever hoped for actually.

It might seem like a small group but with an apartment this small it still got quite crowded, especially since everybody should bring their own dish but because of work no one had time to prepare anything so they all had to use my kitchen and with a tiny kitchen like mine we had to go in turns and all the cooking took several hours to finish. Almen and Lone were rather clever and ordered Pizza instead, which took two hours to deliver but still arrived at about the same time all the rest of the food was finished.

Everyone’s dishes:

• Joyce - Pasta with pasta sauce (basically "spagetti och köttfärsås")
• Man - Chicken wings
• Janice - Brought a homemade cheesecake so she never had to occupy the kitchen.
• Kate and Ariel - A vegetable/fruit salad.
• Johan - Meatballs from IKEA and chocolate cake.
• Almen and Lone - Pizza hut set with pizza, lasagna and soup.
• Then I just guess Wilson and Tony got the Sushi.
  

I had planned to make pancakes too but we were too full and everyone left before we got hungry enough again.

Tony brought his Wii too so for the first time I got to try the Wii-mote and play things like Mario-cart, boxing (which was a real exercise), bowling and tennis. We had gift exchange too; lucky draw where everybody bought one gift and then fortune got to decide who got what. We numbered all the gifts and had numbers in a Santa-hat and the score in bowling decided who to draw first. You should have seen Joyce playing bowling by the way, damn the girl can stance, hahaha.

I got Ariel's gift, a two piece set of cute cat's where one holds curtains and the other is a storage box for napkins. Almen got my gift which was a beginner's guide to palm-reading book. And of course there were lots of photos taken and many joyful sounds so soon after the gift exchange we got a complaint call that we were too noisy.

We still kept playing a bit more silently and had the cakes and some Champagne that Wilson had brought but around 2am everybody started to get tired and left. I think that was a bit premature and was slightly disappointed but what can I do? Everyone else had been working all day and it was pretty late. I still sit with a lot of leftovers now so I don't have to buy and food today.

On Christmas Day I went out with Ariel and her friends; first we had hot-pot, which was actually a bit too expensive and not so fun for me; it is just not easy to join a group that speaks another language. After that we had a room in a club in TST but there had been some booking mistake and after less than an hour we were basically thrown out and moved to another club, which had a significantly better room; much bigger and with a nice view that I doubt anyone noticed.
We also had gifts exchange and I "won" a wallet from Quicksilver, so I guess it's time for me to start using wallet again, after about five or six years with my metal cardholder. My Klappa Panda from IKEA (IKEA is useful) went to a random girl that I don't know, I think Candy's friend. Ariel got a Hello Kitty play set for making labels.

The whole gift exchange was rather complicated, and took a long long time as we were about 20 people exchanging. First we had a lucky draw like on Christmas Eve but then we went through the whole group and had a blind exchange; basically your eyes were covered and someone pointed at someone else’s gift and you could say yes or no to exchange it with yours, if you said no three times you got to keep the one you had. I don't know the first one I had because I didn't see who finally got it but it was something from Sasa (a cosmetics store) so I guess something for girls, then I had some kind of first-aid for lonely men; something that would supposedly make you more charming, after that I got a tie which I finally lost to Fish and got myself the wallet, which I'm pretty happy about actually.

After that we played all night and had lots to drink, Ariel left around 4am I think but I stayed to the very end where the all nighters went to have breakfast at MacDonald's, which I despise by the way; what is the point of only serving ham stuff and nasty potato cakes when you actually have the means to make real burgers? And even when you ask nicely they completely refuse to do it, and it's just bureaucracy. It was still fun though and I didn't step through my door at home until around 8am.

Today I have to try and clean up the rest of the party (it is not as bad as the girls did all the dishes after dinner and we were actually rather clean), finish the leftover food and lesson plan my classes for tomorrow.