My December

December 3rd

Put up the Christmas Tree with C. It’s a tradition in our family that the tree needs to come out early. I see no point in putting up the tree just a few days before Christmas. So little time to enjoy it.

December 4th

Go shopping for bannister decor. I have wooden bannisters at home, one along the staircase and the other in the TV room. I want to do cyprus and fairy lights with big red bows or stockings. Something festive coz it’ll look so pretty!

December 10th

Baking! I’m attempting the mother of all baking challenges. Christmas cake,and the judge is more critical than Matt,Gary and George in Masterchef! My mum! A cake making veteran who’s being making all kinds of cakes for as long as I can remember! I hope it passes the test!

Christmas on Wings The annual Sri Lankan Airlines carol service. Must try to catch it this time around.

December 11th

There’s no point in celebrating Christmas if you can’t make it a little better for someone who hasn’t got it as good as you do. At Sunday mass, we all pick a child (annonymous).to sponsor for Christmas. Church puts up a Christmas tree and decorates it with little colourful tags. Inside each tag is an annonymous child with gender and age mentioned, but with no name,address or any other info. At midnight mass on the 24th, everyone comes with their gift for the child they sponsored and hands it over to church. All the gifts with tags attached are then sent to those children on the 25th morning. It’s a small gesture but I like to think it brightens up a childs day. Last year C & I sponsored a 12 year old girl. It’s something my family does every christmas and we sponsor 3 kids every year.

December 17th &18th

Official Christmas shopping!!!! I can hear C groan as he reads this! :p not that shopping is strictly limited to this particular weekend ofcourse 🙂

December 23rd

Annual leave till the 2nd Jan 2012 😀 Cause for celebration in itself!!

December 24th

Will be spent at my parents place. Mid night mass with the folks and C & I will crash there instead of going back home. Big family breakfast with my sis and hub joining in as well the next day.

December 25th – Christmas Day

Yay!! 🙂 Breakfast with the family at my parents and then it’s back home to prepare for Christmas Dinner which will be at our place this time. C’s family, my parents, grandmum, Sister’s family and in-laws will all be coming over. I love big festive christmas do’s. I particularly love it when the extended family comes over as well. It’s the only time of the year when you pull all the stops and go all out and everyone has a good time and there’s good festive cheer in the air. After all this is over, our immediate bunch of friends meet up for a short while. This time around we’ll be late to attend but will make it nonetheless! Yes Delilah, you will get your polymate goodie box :p

December 26th

Will be spent moping that Christmas is over too soon. As it always is every year 😦

December 31st

NYE barbeque with the gang and ever since 31st night 2009, 12midnight will always bring a twinkle to my eye for another special reason 🙂

That’s how my December is looking so far and I can’t wait! What are your plans?

Birthday Happenings

So C’s b’day came and went. I think I had more fun organizing it and throwing surprises at him over the period of a week or so than the b’day boy himself! 🙂 However,every surprise backfired! in terms of timing that is :S Let me elaborate;

1). The b’day getaway – was planned 1 week before his b’day. The story was that it was our office annual trip and we had to head to Galle for 2 days with the families etc etc. The whole thing backfired when I realised that it was the Deepavali week and my caretaker was to go home a few days before. So I had to explain things to C and the cat was out of the bag. Sob.

2). The gift – again was supposed to be a surprise. Finally decided to get him a home theatre system coz he’d been pining for one for yonks. I go to Singer Mega, buy the gift, inspect sizeability to see if it can be smuggled into the house without him noticing, decide that it could be hidden under the guest room bed and go home with the box. I go home, lug the box inside only to find out that it infact could not be shoved under the bed :S I could have just locked the door or not said anything about it altogether – he’s a man afterall, I know the ladies reading this would probably be thinking. But, dear reader, my hub inspects the whole house daily as a security measure :S So I decided to take the bull by the horns and just tell C;

Me – “Here, don’t go into the guest bedroom okay, ur gift is inside”
C – “Can’t you hide it under the bed?”
Me – *wails* ” No it’s too taaaalllll….. oops”
C – *grins* “Tall? haha!!!! I know what you got me :P”

-_-

Anyhow it turns out he assumed I bought him a computer sound system and not the real deal so it was a half surprise atleast 😀

3). The partaaay – A common practice with our closest cirlce of friends is to throw a memorable do for each others b’day. No one’s b’day is missed. Ever. It all starts with an email thread of party planning and C’s was a bbq coz he loves them. With 2 couples in the clique, the norm is for the spouse to take the lead and the others chip in with the planning etc. So the plans go all smooth and it’s a well planned typical backyard bbq which was to happen at our place. Now our backyard has no lawn. Not a problem. I go home a week and a half back and see our back and front gardens “Lawned” with C grinning ear to ear at the doorway. It was a surprise for me coz I had said I wanted to get the lawn done before Christmas. So lo and behold, a lawn was born. Now the problem? No stepping on the grass for a week and a half!!! and a week and a half was up exactly on the bbq day! No backyard = no bbq 😦 Top that with the torrential monsoons we’ve been having and the whole thing looked doomed. So I craftily (I use that word very optimistically here) had to get my info right and kept asking C things like;

Me –“ummmm I can’t wait to walk barefoot on the lawn!!”

C – “Darling,no walking on the lawn for 2 weeks!”

Me – “but when u say 2 weeks that means it’s ok to trample by *insert bbq date* noh?”

C – “Ah yeah, should be ok”
Me –  “Is it ok to like keep heavy stuff on the grass?”
C – “What heavy stuff?? :S”
Me – “ummmm like tables and stuff?”
C -“Ah!!!!! ur planning something for me noh? :P” Another -_- moment for me. So vut to do. I had to tell him 😦

All in all it was fun and I think he had a good time. Some pics below 🙂

Low key on D-day. Dinner cooked by me 🙂

There was dessert too! Nigella's Instant Chocolate Mousse! A whole new post on that later!

I think 3 b'day cakes is a record! :s This is what the hotel had kept ready for us when we got there 🙂

and a Pagoda chocolate cake on his birthday itself, u can't have a b'day with no cake can u?

And the masterpiece! Another Nigella recipe. Black Lady. Sinful,sticky and delish! My decor skills need improvement though :S This was for the bbq day.

 

 

Happy Birthday

To the man who puts a smile on my face the first thing every morning and the last thing at night,

Happy Birthday Baby, you deserve the best of everything and more.

I Love You.