The Sweet Family - Christmas in the Tropics

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.

Christmas Table Runner

A few weeks ago I ordered one of my favourite magazines from the US taking advantage of the good exchange rate at the time (which was short lived), Quilting Arts. 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.

Some of the fabrics are from the "Olivia the Pig" range, which I sourced here in Singapore. They are lovely and bright and a bit of a change from the usual Christmassy greens and reds.