A Christmas Eve to Remember

 For Christmas Eve, we had our friends the Flenner's and the Newcomb's to dinner.  When we moved to Singapore in 2005, we began the tradition of making Tortellini Soup.  I'm not sure why we chose this, but it stuck. After we got the kids settled...

...and the adults sat down to dinner, 

I remembered I had forgotten the table centerpiece.  I'm not usually one to care about such things, so I was excited I actually planned for this. I ran off to the balcony to get it... I put it out there to keep the flowers fresh, since it's so COLD out there!  I'm still not sure how this happened, but a peice of this broke off in my hands and put a nasty gash in my right middle finger. I instinctively grabbed my finger with my thumb and wondered if perhaps a simple band-aid would do.

Here is the offending bowl.  See it? When I lifted my thumb, I realized this was no band-aid boo-boo. And before any of our guests had taken a single bite!  After sitting in the bathroom for a few minutes and taping my thumb and middle finger together to help the bleeding, we decided we might as well go ahead and eat dinner before heading to the hospital.

Here are my sweet friends Robyn and JJ. Do you know what they and they hubbies did while Jim & I took off for the ER? By the time we returned, the kids were playing happily, and my entire kitchen was spotless.Thanks friends!

We even made it back in time for our Advent candle 'program'!

After our friends left we promised hot cocoa and cookies under the tree.

When Kathryn cut her lip 2 weeks ago, we went to the well-known Western hospital.  It took about 5 hours from start to finish, and we paid $500.  This time we decided to try a nearer Japanese-Chinese hospital.  20 minutes away.  1 hour 15 minutes. $10. No kidding!  So if you have to end up at the ER on Christmas Eve, you should do it when your friends can watch your kids; Go to the Japanese hospital and pay $10.  Make sure you do it early enough in the evening so there is still time for candles and cookies when you get back! My little mishap in the kitchen put this Christmas on the map, but it could have been so much worse!