Christmas Memories

We had an early Christmas Party at Seema's pad yesterday evening, all 4 of us Oil Painting Musketeers (Amelia, Karen, Seema and I)

We were supposed to have dinner at Swensons' but changed our mind and decided it was more cosy to buy dinner in and relax at Seema's. Seema bought sushi - Karen consented to have cooked prawn sushi with no seaweed, surprise, surprise (she hates the smell of seaweed) - then we went over to Burger King's to get packed meals.

After dinner, we got down to opening our presents. Seema would be going back to India to celebrate Christmas with her parents, so we thought, what the hey, we would open our gifts early, to see each other's reactions to the presents we had selected for them.

As usual, I took photos of the four of us, using the timer on my camera. Amelia wanted to learn how to use the timer on her camera and after giving her the basics, she carefully selected the 10second timer, stood and aimed at all of us, then depressed the button to take the photo. Then she placed the camera on the table and ran to her place, TOTALLY forgetting that the angle of the photo has changed - remember she stood to take aim, then set the camera on the table. Needless to say, her photo didn't look all that great. *grin*

Seema and I laughed so hard till tears dropped from our eyes, and STILL Amelia had no clue WHY we were both laughing so hard, and she was laughing herself as she slapped at our arms asking, "WHAT? WHAT? Stop laughing lah, WHY you laugh? What's so funny?" Karen too had no idea why we were laughing, but was laughing anyway because Seema and I were. When Seema and I finally pulled ourselves together, we explained to the other two, which set off yet another round of helpless laughter.

It is a good memory to have, one that I'll keep for the rest of my life.

Perhaps we laughed so hard because this may the last Christmas Seema will celebrate with us. She's accepted a job posting to Dubai, and may move there in January.

When she told us in the afternoon, I think we were all stunned. Somehow, you always think our time with each other will last forever, but of course, we knew Seema's stay in Singapore was limited - we just didn't know she would leave us so soon. Karen said she saw Amelia wipe away some tears, while I was just stunned into silence. I think we all felt we were just punched in the chest by the news. Seema's not left Singapore yet, but we feel the loss already.