Mon, 25 Dec - A Merry Christmas Not

Fortunately Cheryl and myself were spared. We still don't know what was the cause, but I guess it was a case of stomach flu, since nobody else in the Christmas eve party got sick except Isaac and TT. With half the family sick, I had to forego going to the Christmas Mass in the morning. TT and Isaac were unable to keep much down and felt extremely lousy. They just slept alot and took in only liquids.

In the morning, Cheryl opened up all her presents. Isaac was too ill and so we opened them up for him. In this picture though, he actually looked pretty alright enough to show some interest at his gifts, but lost interest quickly because he felt so unwell. We usually go to my cousin's place for lunch because her birthday falls on Christmas day. This year she turns 21 and was having her party at a bungalow chalet at Changi. As it was also a kind of gathering for my aunties, I decided to drive my mum there while TT and Isaac rested at home with our maid. Cheryl backed out at the last minute and decided to play with our neighbour Sean instead. I didn't have much of an appetite for the lunch buffet. Perhaps it was psychological and I was afraid I would be the next victim of the stomach flu too and was anticipating it to rear its ugly head anytime.

In fact when I called my sister that day, she said that both my nieces were similarly afflicted! Hmmm... perhaps it's in the air...

In the evening, I had to attend an event at Creative as our company was celebrating our 25th anniversary. I wasn't really in the mood because Isaac and TT were ill, but there wasn't much I could do anyway at home, so I decided to pop by, since I had already registered my whole family for the party. At least I, as an employee, should turn up. Again, I didn't have much of an appetite for the buffet dinner and didn't eat much. The performances for the night were held at the outdoor amphitheatre and Mr. Sim is really blessed that the skies held up for those few hours. Having little sleep the night before, I really couldn't keep awake for the performances. So by 10pm, I decided not to stay back for the lucky draw and go back home to rest. I drove home taking care not to doze off at the wheel even though my eyelids were very heavy.

Back home as I laid my head on the pillow to sleep, I felt really miserable, thinking what a lousy Christmas it had been! I managed to get some sleep for about 2 hours or so before being awakened by Isaac who wanted to drink some milk. We have been giving him plain Milo without milk. He was slowly able to keep his liquids down without throwing up and we were giving him small amounts as frequently as he wanted. As I was preparing his drink, I heard a beep from my handphone. It was a message from my colleague who had attended the event till the end. He told me that if my tickets had certain numbers (like Toto), I could collect $1,000 for each ticket! I had four tickets because I registered my whole family. I checked the tickets, and all of them had the winning numbers! Mr. Sim made it such a way that most people would actually "strike". So at around 1.45am in the morning, I drove back to Creative just in time to collect the 4 cheques totalling $4,000! By that time, the skies had opened up and it was pouring pretty heavily. But boy it was worth it! This Christmas didn't turn out to be totally bad after all.:o)