I can’t believe how quickly this year has flown by. As always,
another huge tree in one of our local shopping centres, plus
incessant Christmas music which begins way too early! This
pic was taken in the first week of November!
For a country with such a diverse population, culturally and religiously (and not necessarily Christian) the celebration of Christmas in Singapore is something you cannot miss (literally).
Growing up in a country where Christmas is part of Summer holidays, it always feels special to me spending this time in the chilly seasons of the northern hemisphere. Santa Claus has his toy workshop at the North Pole, so it makes sense that snow and reindeer feature heavily in the celebrations.
Incredibly, it features highly in the tropical Christmas in Singapore. It feels bizarre walking near Tanglin Mall, dripping with perspiration, past a giant gingerbread house with snow everywhere, then into the Mall to see the furnitue shop displaying a dining room complete with roaring logs on the fire (fake of course). This year’s theme is ‘The Sweet Family – An Enchanting Christmas’. The Orchard Road decorations are once again amazing with sweets and candy hanging from every tree for about 5kms, with sparkling lights everywhere. No worries about global warming or saving energy here! Even Miss14 was quite taken with it (it must be spectacular!). The supermarkets are brimming with imported foodstuffs from the West – though the thought of cooking a turkey in our dolls house oven just doesn’t work.
Last year’s lunch would have been over in an hour if we hadn’t tried to slow the wait staff down with all courses typically arriving Chinese style in rapid succession. This year we are fortunate to be spending the holiday in the US so hopefully we’ll see Santa and the reindeer in the snow I see is falling already.
It’s a rare event indeed that I have a) begun something from a current magazine and b) finished it and c) been able to use it before Christmas! Recently I did a machine quilting class with Ms Chan (whose first name I cannot remember!) from Kuching and I finally managed to do something other than practice on calico. Each section of this table runner is quilted slightly differently, but it was a great piece to test out some different stitching.
First, some fabrics with a Christmas theme. These are Japanese ones which I had in my stash.
They are then cut into 2 inch squares and folded in various ways using Origami techniques
And Voila! A pretty bauble hanging from my bamboo plant outside. I did this class in a local patchwork shop one afternoon recently. Other participants were Chinese and made cute little mandarins which they were hoping to give as gifts for Chinese New Year.
