“Be glad and rejoice with all your heart”, Zephaniah 3:14
Warmest wishes and Christmas blessings to you!

We’re spending Christmas here in Shanghai since no airline would let me onboard, and I don’t want to anyway since I am medically cleared to pop “any moment” between now and end of January. I am rather massive and waddling all over the place, so Christmas will be a very chill celebration with just Church in the morning and then a lazy brunch with some friends afterwards. And that’s just perfect for me :)

We didn’t bother with a Christmas tree this year, but Chris did buy this adorable table centerpiece, which is made of real leaves, so we’re quite impressed it’s lasted for the past 2 weeks and still going strong! Tonight, for Christmas eve, Chris will be cooking us a delicious dinner of Roasted salmon, mashed potato and salad and then we are popping in a cheese Christmas DVD and having a cozy evening on the couch.

Best of all, it’s likely to snow today and tomorrow….. our very first white Christmas together! And that’s a pretty big deal, considering we’ve been together for 10 years..

Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas, where ever you are in the world!

*BIG HUG*

Outdoor fairs are few and far between in China, and since we’re quickly sliding into winter here, we wanted to take full advantage of a particularly sunny yet temperate day and check out the Christmas markets, held by Paulaner restaurant. I liked how the 25元 entry cost could be redeemed at any of the food stalls – fantastic way to keep the masses out, but very reasonable to let us redeem it for food. Hilariously though, the food wasn’t that cheap (think 35元 for the little hash browns below) so the 25元 didn’t exactly go very far ;) I was under the assumption that since it was held on Paulaner’s premises, and their restaurant would obviously benefit with the hundreds of people there, the food stalls would be subsidized and pretty cheap. But nope, it was all actually really expensive. Definitely not value for money, but at least the stalls were all adorably decorated and it did feel like we had stepped out of China.

There were quite a fair number of food stalls, but all strangely sold almost entirely the same foods. Odd that they didn’t have variety. The knick knack stalls were really interesting to potter around and have a look, but most of the stuff was priced for expats/foreigners so we didn’t really get anything. It was lovely walking around soaking in the sun and atmosphere though :)

Germans aren’t gonna like me for saying this, but the sign looks like the printer
exploded and printed gibberish on the banner……. heh!!

Soaking in the warm sun

The pretty Christmas markets. Doesn’t look like we’re in China, aye?!

Reibekuchen (German hash browns) served with applesauce and
some sort of sticky molasses sauce (forgot what it was!)

Curried German sausages and bread – luscious

We then settled into the Paulaner restaurant itself, which was packed to the brim with families! So many kids running everywhere and a ton of strollers littered all over the place, *lol*. I guess the whole “family scene” is more our kinda thing now, instead of the partying/clubbing scene ;) The portions at Paulaner are really reasonable, which I always take delight in. I think we OD’d on sausages though! In retrospect, would’ve gotten the pork schnitzel or something. Still, lovely food, hit the spot, and a nice way to spend a lazy weekend :)

The packed out dining area of Paulaner

Me and my strawberry milkshake

A very generous bread basket with pate, fat, and butter.

Assorted sausages and sauerkraut!

Well-fed and sausage’d out