Christmas Day

Turned out to be a great day. I was slow moving in the morning, but was over at Michelle's and Nick's for about 11 (after shaving my head and picking up batteries for my camera). Katy was already over there, so we opened presents before Betty and Ivy arrived. I was a dork and didn't get any for people, but Michelle and Nick got me one, and Michelle got a shared toy for Nick and I: a remote-controlled car. Nick got me a zany Chinese pop-box/song thing. It looks like a barrel of gold coins and this Chinese guy bobs up and down singing a really really annoying song. It's great. All of our stuff made noise so we had worse song/noises competitions.

When Michelle went with Katy to meet up with Ivy, Betty and Jung Lei, Nick and I went to forage at the grocery store. We got: 1 kg of sausages, another pack of 8 eggs, orange juice, two bottles of wine, eight bottles of beer, and mushrooms. Mix that in with the two packs of bacon, 16 eggs, two loaves of bread that Michelle already had and we were set. I cooked up a huge breakfast - with Katy, Ivy and Betty attempting to butter toast (new experience for them) and Nick microwaving scrambled eggs. Nick and I got into one of the bottles of wine. I cooked up the sausages, mushrooms, bacon and did some botched fried eggs. We were working with very poor culinary resources. It was a MacGyver xmas breakfast.

God it was funny watching the Chinese girls and Jung Lei try to eat with forks and knives. They ended up making sandwiches out of everything. Then we made an obstacle-course out of boxes and raced the car around. That fun lasted for a good 40 minutes, then we headed downstairs to Nick's apartment to start the games.

First up... monopoly, another new experience for Betty, Ivy, Jung Lei and Katy. I was teamed with Betty and Ivy, Michelle was with Jung Lei, and Nick was with Katy. At first, Ivy and Betty weren't sure what was going on, but once they got into it, Ivy kept shouting "Pay money!" every time someone moved to a property she thought we had. Betty kept feeling guilty about rolls that landed us on tax squares and trying to get Ivy and I to not buy anything and just amass wealth. It was a good time, but kinda petered out as monopoly does.

We switched to card games, so I taught everyone Crazy 8s. We played a few rounds of that, then tried Go Fish, but I couldn't remember all the rules and that fell apart. So we played Chinese Go Fish (Dao Yu... I think?) which was cool. Kind of like blackjack. Everyone gets 4 cards, and a central card is placed face-up. You have to make 14 out of it with a card you have, then you take the combo for yourself. If you can't, you have to lay one of your cards down so the next person has two options. Also, spades are worth 4 pts, hearts 3, clubs 2, diamonds 1. You tally points once everyone is out of cards in their hand (when the deck is out of cards in the centre). Very fun. We played quite a few rounds. I did horribly. I think Betty got a higher score on our first round than I did in the entire game of 5 rounds.

After that, Jung Lei headed home so Michelle walked with him. Nick and Katy just hung out, chatting, and I played a fishing game with Ivy and Betty. I started cheating by wrapping their fishing pole lines up with mine, and by the end it was "who can keep the others from getting any fish". We had to stop because we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe.

Then we played Pictionary. Michelle and I had dragged a portable whiteboard from the school the evening before. It was Betty, Katy and I vs Michelle, Nick and Ivy. It was great, and we played for quite some time. We had a few arguments over being exact ("age" vs "aging" for instance) but all in all it was great. Pictionary lasted quite a long time. When Ivy and Betty departed, we played darts for a bit and just hung out. Then we went back to Pictionary since it was going so well.

For supper, we went to a Western restaurant and kind of pigged-out. By the time we finished there, it was almost 10pm, and we called it a night. All in all, a fun day. Everyone had a good time. Can't ask for more than that.