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Merry Christmas to you all! Ok, so if shopping and going to a wedding isn’t your idea of Christmas, you should probably skip this post, ‘cause that’s what we did today! First things first. At midnight, the church below us once again gave me the pleasure of lovely music wafting up to the hotel windows. Of course, if the hotel windows were even remotely insulated, I wouldn’t be able to hear.....but I can! As you can see, the girls were happy with their Christmas gifts. They didn’t get up too early, so that was nice. They didn’t get any toy items this year, ‘cause Santa is well aware of our luggage restrictions, but they did get some cool watches, necklaces, and rings, along with some funky Hello Kitty clothes and a little bit of chocolate. After we’d enjoyed watching them, and putting their jewellery and watches on, we headed out for some shopping. Yes, all retail stores are wide open on Christmas day in Hong Kong. We didn’t actually buy anything, but we did go out to the shops. We wanted to keep it low-key today because this afternoon/evening we have to attend a wedding. Yes, a wedding on Christmas day! In fact, the kids are the flower girls. So, we went for a leisurely lunch and then wandered around some more downtown, then came up to the hotel to get dressed. As you can see from the photos we clean up not too badly, if I do say so myself!! We headed to the hotel for the lavish event, preceded by a rehearsal (or so we’d be told). In fact, although we arrived on time for the rehearsal, we seemed to be the only ones ready at all. Everyone else was still running around trying to get organized. The rehearsal (if you can call it that) took place just about 15 minutes before the actual wedding was to happen. Strangest bloody thing, if you ask me, because by then most of the wedding guests had arrived, so the rehearsal was done in front of all the guests, in full wedding gear, then 15 minutes later, they saw the same thing, only the “real thing”. What the…??? Oh well, as you can see, Emily and Stephy looked absolutely smashing in their pretty pink dresses, capes and shoes. In fact, they really did look great, even though I wasn’t excited about “pepto-pink” to begin with. The ceremony was short and mostly painless (both times!!) and then the frustration began for real. The dinner was to start by 8pm (yeah, freaking late enough, eh??) but by 9pm, we were still sitting around, still hungry, and watching the kids start to fall asleep, as they took more and more staged photos. In fact, this was the first wedding I’ve been to where the guests seldom ever get even a glimpse of the bride and groom. They literally got blocked off by their own photographers for most of the wedding. Seriously. It was ridiculous. Most Hollywood celebrities don’t have that much blockage! Anyway, before the food began to arrive, Emily had started complaining that she’d had enough, but Danny wouldn’t let us leave. She climbed up on my lap and promptly fell fast asleep. Yes, before dinner. Yes, at the dinner table. Fast asleep. Stephanie was another story completely. Instead of falling asleep, she went into over-tired, hungry, hyper mode and never stopped. In fact, she was the primary source of entertainment for the people at our table. She ate very little, I ate nothing, and Emily slept. Sounds like fun? You think? Emily finally started to wake up about ¾ of the way through the dinner (like 10pm) and was cranky as hell. So, I decided that enough was enough and I took both kids and hopped in a taxi home. Of course Danny stayed with his family for the rest of the wedding, but me and the kids had had enough. Back to the hotel, quickly out of the “pretty in pink” ensembles and fed them some makeshift dinner, then put them to their beds. Parts of the flower girl experience were fun for them, but those parts ended many hours before we were able to make our escape. A very long day for us girls.
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