This Christmas eve was different. We didn't attend any fancyshmancy parties. We didn't host a 'fancyshmancy' party. We didn't cook any awesome christmas dishes.

We sat home. Watching TV. Looking at the approaching storm from our balcony. Eating up the leftovers from the party the night before. Quite frankly, we haven't had an informal and calm christmas evening in a long while.

While waiting for our clocks to strike at 12 in the morning, we sat around th TV watching Bicentennial Man and later when mum disappeared, Ri and I lined all the Christmas presents under the tree in a line. I came up with this stupid experiment idea the night before, thinking that there were enough presents under the tree to make a line from the tree to our front door!

Unfortunately, all the presents under the tree didn't make it to the end. It only made it half way, which was just fine. Just fine.

Finally, our clocks beeped 12 AM. Christmas had arrived! Riana started unwrapping before mum and I had finished sending our horde of SMS messages wishing friends and family a Merry Christmas.

I love unwrapping presents. It's another one of those things that keeps my innerchild as young as ever. There is no careful way to unwrap presents. You just can't avoid being messy or barbaric.

I received a glass horse statue from my grandmum; a Tom & Jerry magnetic memo holder from Ew-Jun; some Bodyshop perfume from Carol and her son, John; a book on "101 Things To Do Before You Die" from my cousins, Ji-Shen and Ji-Han; a Desperate Housewives: Behind Closed Doors book and a quote book of sisters from my sister, Riana; 50 ringgit from my aunty Keti and uncle Caesar; a copy of "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Piccoult (which was something we had talked about in my Christian Studies class last semester), from Dhivya and her family; a wrist cushion SLASH paper weight in the shape of a hippo with glow-in-the-dark stars, from Shaza; and finally, an 2GB iPod Nano plus casing from mum.

Dudes [mentioned above], if you're reading this,
thank you :)

I'm not being picky or selfish or whatever the word is, here, but out of all the gifts, the iPod Nano was such a knockout for me. It just proved that if you keep whining about something you want, there is a chance that you might get it in the end! It's a bad attitude, but... I love my mum.


Have you seen how small it is? It's incredible! Compared to my 2 year old brick, it's ANT SIZE. It weights a FEATHER compared to my old iPod.

All this unwrapping of gifts still doesn't make Christmas my ultimate favourite day of the year. Christmas is still very stressful and tiring, what with buying presents and wrapping stuff. It's fun and colour and enjoyable, but it's not really my mug of milk and tray of biscuits, you know what I mean?

Again, let me wish you all a Merry, Merry Christmas. (Incoming: lame ending) Let's keep jingling all the way to the new year!

Cheers :)