Christmas 2012

I meant to post this up a few days ago but my strep throat got the best of me... So here we go!

Christmas wasn't as eventful as I would have like it to be this year but I can't complain with everything that happened (grandmother's funeral in SG, hectic schedule of exams after) towards the end of the year. 

I will probably write a post about this another day.

Christmas decorations at CrossIron Mills.

Polar bear decoration at 
Chinook Mall

I love the lead up to Christmas because everyone is in a holiday mood. The malls are filled with loads of crazy shoppers looking for last minute gifts, Christmas songs playing everywhere you go, the beautiful, sparkly decorations, the Christmas baking, the list goes on and on. But when Christmas Eve and Day arrive, I hate it because it feels like my favorite holiday is all over and perhaps I built it up too much. Does anyone else feel this way? 

My family always goes for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. My little sister and I take foreverrrrrrrr to get ready because we like to make ourselves fancy. This year we started getting ready at 6:30 pm but we didn't finish till 9:30 pm... Hahaha, oops! To be fair, I had to do my make up, then her make up, curl my hair, curl her hair and style it. And when I was done I only had time to have a small little snack of goat cheese and crackers. We normally have dinner after mass... I know, crazy late for dinner, right? 

Here's where it gets super stressful, my dad's rushing us out the door at 10:10 pm because he thought mass was at 11 pm... He's yelling at us as it is always a hassle to get all of us out the door. Woops. The whole way to church he was angry and yelling at us for taking so long,  saying how we're always like this every year, there'll be no parking, we're not going to have seats, we should just skip mass this year to teach you guys a lesson for next year, etc, etc, then he forgot to take an exit... Oh man, was he ever so mad because we kinda got lost...  We lost 10 minutes due to our detour and he wouldn't stop scolding us until my mother yelled at him to stop because him scolding us wasn't going to change anything. My mom's so level-headed, hehe. Honestly the whole ride there I was thinking that this year was the first time our whole family has made it out the door so early and by the time we did get to church, we would have an hour to kill... But I just kept my mouth shut because I didn't want him yelling at me. So we arrive at 11 pm and my dad's like oh, see, now there's no parking... I'm thinking what... there's so much parking in the parking lot just behind us. So he goes to park in the parking lot and before we got out of the car, I start bursting out in laughter and told him, "by the way... this is the earliest we've ever been to mass." My mother and I couldn't stop laughing. 

I love Christmas mass, there's always such a sense of peacefulness and love after... Plus a grumbling tummy. After mass, we dropped Lance off at work (suckerrrrr), and had some dinner at a restaurant in Chinatown. Finally, we headed home for gifts and I ended up staying up to bake some cookies for the Christmas party the next day.

Christmas Day is another crazy day at the Sim residence. My parents are both working on cooking multiple dishes for the party... Well my dad's the one cooking, while my mom is the one helping him find all the cooking things he needs: pots, pans, sauces, spices, etc. They tend to yell at each other when it's close to the guests coming over, it's actually kind of hilarious watching and hearing them every year. Haha, I'm cruel. Noms. Christmas Day dinner is one of the meals I look forward to every year. 

Turkey, Ham, 2 Lamb Shanks

Salmon, Chili Shrimps, Apple-cran spinach salad

After the dinner was done, one of my super duper best friend came to pick Lance and I up because they both had to work at a boutique hotel down town (Hotel Le Germain). I'm such an awesome friend too because I brought him some food and hung out with them. I was very fortunate as Lance had booked me a Luxury room for a few nights. 

Now this part is going to be my little review on the hotel and what the room has to offer. I flipping love this room; it's the only room I stay at when I'm at the hotel. It's so HUGE... Seriously, you could do kart wheels and flips all around the room. It had a very comfortable king size bed with a goose feathered duvet. I loveee their pillows too. It's so big... I wanted to take them home with me. 

The view in the room is pretty nice too, you can see The Bow, Stephen Avenue, the Hyatt, and the Marriott. The hotel offers complimentary Wi-Fi and an Ethernet cable in your room to hook up to your laptop if you wanted a faster internet speed. 

I loved the walk-in closet because I have yet to have stay at any other hotel with a closet quite like that. I appreciate their closet because you could easily hide your luggage away if you had guests come over. There's a safe, an umbrella, a tiny ironing board and an iron in there, all available for use. If you wanted a bigger ironing board, I believe you could request for one. 

Here's the closet, it's so spacious; the picture doesn't do justice to it.

My favorite part of the room was the bathroom... Its layout was opened up to the room, while the toilet was closed off in its own separate room. There's two sinks, a huge soaker tub and a separate shower. They offer loaaads of towels, two bathrobes, and Molten Brown toiletries. Love, love, love the Molten Brown shampoo, it makes my hair smell so good. Ahhhhhhh, the soaker tub is a-maaazing! I wished I used it more. It's so convenient filling up the tub as they had a spout in the ceiling that dropped water down to fill the tub up faster than the shower head on the side doing it. Trust me, it fills up way faster than drawing a bath at home. I used their package of stress relieve bath salts and I put some bath soap in the tub to make it super foamy. When it was ready, I got into it and had my iPad wrapped in a bag so I could read Harry Potter and just relax! The shower had a huge rainfall shower head which I kinda want. Seriously, I could live in this room and be happy forever. The temperature of the room was very easy to adjust as each room has its own thermostat. 

Christmas was different this year, but still the warm, loving holiday I love. By the time Lance and Hubert were done their shift, it was the morning of the 26th. And we all know what that means...

Boxing Day shopping!

But I'll save that for another day!
So tell me, how do you celebrate Christmas?