24 December 2005

Christmas Delights

I don't usually celebrate Christmas, and the main reason is of course I'm not Christian. But I was invited by my friend Angeline to join a Christmas potluck organized by the Penang International Church, a church made up of mostly expatriates and foreign missionaries. As I mentioned in my previous post, I made salad.

Anyway, we arrived at the Dalat International School on time and joined in the service. It was quite boring with the same old hymn sing-alongs and performances by adorable kids. Bless the pastor for not preaching during the service. And the best part of it was the candle lighting. We were each given a tealight candle, and we passed the light around. And the greatest thing of all is that we could keep the tealight candle holder! It is a pretty simple plastic design, but they seem Ikea-ish, so it is kinda like my first Christmas present.

On to the food. I shouldn't have bothered with my salad, coz it could not match most of the delicacies there. Next to the turkey, gingerbread man, and sour cream, people also brought local food like curry puffs and satay. It was nice to finally taste real sour cream, not the fake Pringles variety. And the drinks were fantastic as well - there was apple cider and eggnog. EGGNOG! I've seen it on American TV all the time, but this was my first sip of the famous Christmas beverage. I gotta say it was nothing I imagined it would be. It was not as egg-y as I thought, and there was no alcohol in it (I think rum is supposed to be an ingredient).

We left at almost 11pm, and I'm glad I went. It was really nice to be able to try out some authentic Christmas food, but I'm a little paiseh about my lame salad.

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