It's Christmas!

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Christmas isn't really a holiday over here as we know it in the West. Schools don't shut, there's no before or after sales shopping.

We were lucky that our company gave us Boxing Day off so we had a three day weekend.

In Sea World there's a lovely Mexican restaurant which the Irish and Malika had never been to, so Christmas Eve we decided to visit it. We went for lunch knowing it would be quieter than at dinner and we would probably eat enough not to need dinner. We started with cocktails and finished with cocktails and somewhere in between there was some Mexican food. We stayed in the restaurant for most of the afternoon leaving at around six. No one but me had been to the Snow and Ice exhibition so as it was Christmas and snow seemed the way we go off we went.

On the walk to the Ice and Snow we got a lot of funny looks. I say walk but as there were five western girls singing and dancing and running along the pavement, I'm not surprised we were b img stared at.

It was a lot colder then when I had gone with Kelly. Laura's glasses frosted over straight away. We took photos with each other and the sculptures. We sat in the train and the igloo. We went on the toboggan and snow tubes. Then we spotted the ice bumper boats and of course it would have been me that slipped on the ice while trying to get into one. After a short play, we think we may have broke one - It just stopped working and so we decided it was time to leave.

We needed warming up so went for a hot chocolate - very wintry.

We all went back to mine and danced and sang until the Irish went home. Val and Malika stayed that night. Luckily Destry was out and Dawn had gone to visit some friends.

Next morning and it's Christmasssss!

The Irish came later in the day so in the morning we just chilled. Once the Irish arrived we opened presents and watched A Nightmare before Christmas.

One of the Western restaurants were having an all you can eat Christmas dinner buffet which we had planned to go to. I'm not really a roast person but the thought of turkey and stuffing made want to go! We arrived got our table and went in search of food - there was no stuffing!!

During the meal we realised Fiona had never watched Love Actually! This had to be put right so on returning to my apartment, we sat and watched it. It was just the right thing to do.

Even though this wasn't the type of Christmas I was used to it was an amazing festive period and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

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