Our December parties have started.

The Victors kick-started the feasting last Saturday at their home. It was actually meant as a birthday celebration for Nan, Gaye's mother who turned 88. But the rest of us also took it as an early Christmas party and exchanged presents. The Victors have since headed down-under and we won't be seeing them till next month.

My office had a Christmas tea-party on Friday and I received a mini-snow trooper key-chain for the gift exchange game. The food was great, a lot to bring home and everyone had a good One and  half hours break from work. I brought back muffins and cakes that we had ordered from Coffee Bean.

And yesterday was the dinner for the hubs' side of his family and relatives. Since he always have the habit of waking up early, I tasked the hubs to boil lemongrass to make lemongrass drink, bring out the minced chicken to rinse, boil water and wash the balcony. And when I woke up, I threw K's clothes into the washing machine, hung them up to dry and then marinated the minced chicken and then the hubs diced up all the vegetables that I would use for the mixed Veg dish for later.

We then went to Jem for lunch as well as to collect the Christmas rainbow cake I had ordered for the church's Christmas service.

When we returned home, K obediently took a nap and for 3 hours! Good stretch of time for me to do all the prep work and for the hubs to collect the turkey and ham that he had ordered from his workplace as well as 2 other Indian dishes from the nearby coffee-shop.

While the hubs had to wait out the rain,the Shepherd's pie, with mutton this time, was already in the oven. Then the 2nd BIL and wife came earlier to help us as well. The 2nd SIL helped us fold K's clothes and then helped to monitor the spicy chicken wings in the air-fryer.

At the end of the day, we had so much food left-over that the guests were all more than willing to have them packed to bring home. I'm glad my first time making mutton shepherd's pie was as well received as my usual one. So, technically, there wasn't any food waste.

And today, we had another feasting at church after the Christmas service. All of us had a great time during the gift exchange. Thankfully, I had not volunteered to cook this time as yesterday was enough to tire me out! So ordering the Christmas cake was a good idea! Hahahah...

The 3 of us were so tired that we all took our naps together when we reached home after church. I, of course, took the shortest one and woke up to put the laundry to wash, magic-cleaned the house, made dinner, mopped the house and then rearrange the presents under the Christmas tree.

Thankfully, for my side of the family's Christmas celebration, my SILs always bring more than 1 item. I can't wait for it to happen this Christmas eve. It'll be one of the rare times the entire family comes together. Yes, every family member of my 4 siblings. :)