Christmas in Singapore

I’ve sort of considered people saying ‘I can’t believe it’s already Christmas!’ as slightly bonkers; I mean is it really a surprise? Surely it was exactly the same amount of time between for instance your birthday up until Christmas as last year. And all the years before that. However, I think this time, I’m right there with the IQ challenged, ‘cause I swear it was August not that long ago. And now it’s three weeks to Christmas Eve (this is the day Swedes celebrate btw, we don’t really bother too much about the rest); I feel like regular popcorn vs micro pop.

Speaking of micro waves; drying fruit in them works absolutely splendid

I’ve more or less come to terms with the fact that Singapore’s cold record has been +23 degrees C and that physically means that it will snow when hell freezes over. What I reacted most to was on the other hand the fact that I was shopping ingredients for fudge, mulled wine and other Christmas candy, wearing flip flops.

This is basically what you get instead of snow: tropical rainstorms of ca 30 min of complete floods falling from the skies

However, since we’ve not really had a proper Christmas Eve since we moved to Asia, the first not really having furniture and the second with all our family stuck in a Scandinavian snowstorm, we decided to make the 2011 really count. This generally means food wise, but I might throw in a decorated Christmas palm tree to be on the safe side.

Jonas hanging one of the Christmas stars from Ulricehamn in our kitchen window

 

Christmas decorations in the living room; it’s like when you are abroad, you have to be extra traditional all of a sudden

 

Some of the ingrediences for a traditional Christmas dinner

Slightly unexpected kitchen aid; without it it's roughly +40 degrees C in our kitchen

For the Christmas 2011, a big factor which surely made several Swedish household slightly panicking is that IKEA have decided to only go with their own brands in the food section this year. As a friend pointed out: 'who the f*** wants IKEAs julmust (Swedish soft drink which is a must have on the Christmas table)?' Therefore we decided to do as much as possible ourselves.

Jonas hence became responsible for truffle (2 kinds I must add), fudge, ice chocolate and knack (very sweet Swedish Christmas candy with syrup, almonds and a lot of sugar), while I sorted out out mulled wine (hot red or white wine with cloves, cardamom, cinnamon etc and I of course did both kinds), snaps (2 secret kinds) and red cabbage.

 

Highly concentrated..

 

A masterchef in the making

I also dried oranges and apples + stuck cloves in oranges and tied them up with red ribbons, all for decoration. Throughout the process it was of course important to make sure all gods maintained the highest standard by tasting everything. Jonas was especially keen on trying the wine and liquor both before and after making the drinks; I’m highly impressed that all we made actually came out looking and tasting as it should. In addition, if the neighbors had not heard Tommy Korberg’s ‘Jul, jul’, Sofia Kallman’s ‘Nu tandas tusen juleljus‘ or Jussi Bjorling’s ‘Oh, Helga Natt‘ (Swedish Christmas carols) before, they have certainly have by now. It’s payback time for the endless piano lessons from below.

The first batch

Somewhat over enthusiastic I decided to make my own musli the following morning

I must also admit to a rather dramatic incident with a small tear in the corner of my eye, when I saw the sorriest excuse for Christmas trees ever in one of the supermarkets at the same time as I endured an Asian version of ‘We wish you a melly Chlistmas’. I realized in that moment that there would be no ‘Gnome Throwing‘ (tradition in the Eurenius’ household, when my sister, after a few steady glasses of wine, decides she must decorate the Christmas tree, takes the woolen Santa gnomes [we unfortunately still have lying around] in one hand, her wine in the other, walks backwards towards the tree and throws them at it in a sort of ‘bridal-bouquet-in-an-American-movie-manner’; they then stay where they lie the whole Christmas through, no matter if they’re actually in the tree or not), no snow angels (it’s not that we really make them that often anymore, but I think it’s every Swedes’ privilege to at least get the opportunity) nor home made salmon pate with ‘spotty sauce’ (Mum makes it for a small army, every year, is equally surprised it’s so much left over, every year and we have it on and off until New Years, every year; the sauce is with caviar, hence the spots). This was however only sad for a short while, due to the following.

 This a very Singaporean Orchard Road Christmas tree just next to the palm trees

 This is another very Singaporean Orchard road Christmas tree; do notice the Christmas HORSES, which pretty much end up in the same league as the REINDEER BABY we saw in Tokyo. And the drunk badger outside every Izakaya; never got the full take on that either to be honest  

 A typical view when trying to capture the Christmas spirit: ice cream anyone?

 Or why not trow in a Santa Claus rickshaw while we're at it? Sleighs are indeed unpractical in this climate

These just look like gigant Christmas boobs; can't even see what they are

 We have Christmas reindeer parades in the rest of the world, but if you have elephants, you should probably go with elephants

More.. well, Christmas elefants under a.. golden Christmas.. bush with sparkly.. sea shells in it. OK, I frankly didn't see that one coming; had someone told me and I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would be highly suspicious of involvement of LSD at some level

  And if you are really sick and tired of the good old traditional Christmas tree, just go completely wild n crazy and turn it upside down

Finally I would just like to introduce a small thought regarding giving and Christmas and all, that I also posted on Facebook. If you want to give, but have no money, or want to help, but have no time, going through your closet and collecting all those clothes you haven’t really used the last year, the toys which aren’t really sentimental but still in good condition or the blankets/sheets/towels or other linen just taking up space, donating them to for instance women’s shelters is truly a good deed. In Gothenburg I know for a fact that http://www.kvinnojourgoteborg.com/ or http://www.goteborg.se/wps/portal/huldashus are very happy to gifts, especially around this time a year, since there are many in need. It may be all kinds of thing as mentioned above, but also kitchen ware, furniture, pillows and so on. Some have to leave their current home without being able to even bring their toothbrush, so everything helps. It’s actually quite surprising how much stuff you have that you never use, which is perfectly fine condition. When we left for Tokyo the rule was still that you called them and they came and picked up what you had. Another organization which does a lot for the homeless in Gothenburg is http://www.stadsmissionen.org/.  

God Jul!