A Better Title

For the past few years, whether I am in Singapore or Indonesia, other than the occasional going to the church, Chrismas Eve had been spent without anything special. Only twice did I go to Orchard, once with my friends, and the other with my sister. Never in my life had I received any Christmas presents either.

But this year’s Christmas Eve was slightly different.

Not only did I receive this lovely coffee mug from Nicole, I also went for my first Christmas date–with none other than Nicole herself.

Well, actually the day started with a panic, because I had absent-mindedly washed my shoes the day the night before.

How on earth would the shoes be dry by 3 p.m.?!?

That question had happily slipped my mind that previous night.

And so in the morning of Christmas Eve, I panicked, frantically trying to dry the shoes.

I was thankful that Nicole called me after I texted her saying that my shoes were still wet, because her sister got an idea of hanging the shoes underneath a fan to dry them. How the silly news that my shoes were wet on the day of the date broke to Nicole’s mum and sis didn’t matter anymore. I quickly tied the shoes to the industrial fan that my flatmate owns, and lo and behold, the seemingly silly idea worked! By the time I had to leave home, the shoes were 95% dry! Not too bad…

We met at 3 p.m. at City Hall, and the plan was to have an early dinner because we expected the Christmas crowd. And so we walked around, went to Carrefour to buy a drink, and proceeded to the restaurants to choose a suitable one.

Our choice fell on a restaurant called “Tuk Tuk Thai Kitchen” where they were having a special Christmas buffet–complete with a serving of prawns drizzled with loads of tartar sauce and fruits, wine, and unlimited servings of dessert.

Reminder to self: The Classic wine tastes much better than Red.

We had mango salad, two servings of Tom Yam seafood soup, fried rice, and crab meat roll with minced pork. Nicole thinks that the meal was good, while I think that my tastebuds still need to get used to the authentic spiciness and sourness of Thai food.

Close to two hours of dining later, we made our way to Marina Square, where I bought some cookies for Nicole’s mum as a form of thanks for everything that she had given–from T-shirts to simple worries about me, even though we were not together.

Afterwards, we made our way to Esplanade to exchange gifts.

This was my present for Nicole: a bear with a silver star. The moment I saw him in the shop a couple of weeks ago, I had made up my mind. There was something about the bear that attracted me that I just knew it, it’s like “Ok, this will be my present” kind of thing.

Imagine my horror when Nicole happily walked into the shop a few days before Christmas with me…

And imagine my delight when she skipped the entire row containing the bear. Was it a sign that the present was meant to be?

Well anyway… Some of you might have known Nicole for quite some time now. In my old blog, she was the one who rose as the top commenter in little time.

Some of you might better know her as The Sis, as well as the guest blogger in the blog.

Unfortunately, starting from Christmas Eve, 24 December 2005, about 8.20 p.m., the terms The Sis and similarly The Bro were to be discontinued.

Because from Christmas Eve, 24 December 2005, about 8.20 p.m. onwards, they are known as The Gal and The Guy respectively.

(And if you’re Akin Budi, don’t get too excited and tell Mum just yet. Thanks.)

We made our way back to Marina Square to have our first meal as a couple–chocolate mint and mango ice cream from the shop next to Famous Amos.

We found our way to the MRT, and to The Gal’s house, where I passed the cookies to The Gal’s mum.

(And yes, she’s kept in the dark at the moment too.)

But I was so nervous that other than a “Hi Auntie” and an “I have something for you”, I practically froze there in front of the house with that silly grin of mine, before The Gal’s mum broke the silence with “Merry Christmas to you”.

Silly me.

But that had to be the most memorable Christmas Eve ever.
And to everyone else out there: Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

The Guy,
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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 25th, 2005 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.