Christmas came early this year you guys. Last Friday, Andrea and I hosted a Black&White Christmas party for all our close friends in college as well as some of Drea’s blogshop industry friends at Shane’s place, and even though it was waaaay early (7th Dec, to be precise), at least we managed to get everyone in one place for the final time before twenty thirteen closes. Here’s to some of the best people of 2013:
So very grateful for these people in my life. I’m pretty sure they’re the best thing to come out of the past two and a half years of university. There was a period of time (i think it coincided with the recent A level results release) where I was getting all these emails and askfm questions from you guys on whether i thought trying for university or just going straight to work was a better idea – go to university, guys. It’s not just about academia and a degree: you just don’t get this level of free spirited fun and youthful recklessness that comes with making and keeping friends at this level anymore / slight breathlessness as everyone accelerates towards the huge gaping hole that is working life and beyond, the underlying sentiment that this is it; it’s time to make the most of this. I love it.
Deceptively gorgeous photos from a terrifying giant popper thing I was convinced was going to explode in all our faces..
Credits:
This Christmas party thing seems to be becoming a sort of tradition around these parts. We had it at Lexy’s place last year, and this year we were supposed to just have a simple home cooked dinner at Drea’s house but… things kind of got out of hand. In the best way possible.
Everything you see here was a result of the generosity of several companies we worked with, as well as the product of a slightly panicky party planning mind map (kinda) (we planned this in the midst of our examination period).
The gorgeous photos, for example, were taken by Adrian Seetho for Multifolds Photography, whom Drea engaged to shoot at our party, and without whom the party wouldn’t have been immortalized in digital film so beautifully. If you’re planning a Christmas (or any sort of) party you should definitely think of getting a photographer – you won’t get such gorgeous candid moments otherwise, and in group photos you wont have to wrestle with the self timer / have one person missing in the photo because he/she is behind the lens. You know what I’m talking about.
You can view the full photo set on the Multifolds Facebook page here.
If you want to engage them as well, quote “Andrea” to get a 10% of all services!
Food – of course, integral to any party or social gathering because our friends are hungry monsters that consistently have to be fed, was done by Oh’s Farm Catering. We’ve known Jiahui since we did a food tasting for Pitchstop over a year back, and we couldn’t ask for someone better to trust with our food. It was amazing. This was our menu – but they gave us a ton more options and we spent ages pouring over it to pick our favorite dishes per category for appetizers, mains, and so on.
* Starter: Cold Meat Platter Combination – Salami Beef, Chicken Ham, Cheese Sausage, Turkey Ham, Pepperoni compliments with black olive, Onion rings, Cherry tomato, Gherkin & Cranberry sauce
* Salad: Farm’s potato salad topped with tuna flakes & tossed with chef’s salad dressing
* Chicken: Marinated rosemary whole chicken with pan jus
* Prawn: Cheese baked Atlantic Prawn
* Red Meat: Beef stew with root vegetables
* Fish: Baked Salmon Fillet with White Cream Sauce (my friend were raving about this!)
* Vegetable: Oriental Green Vegetable with Chinese Mushroom
* Staple: Sauteed Pasta with Vine-ripened Tomato (my favourite!)
* Side dish: Breaded scallop with tartar dip
* Dessert: Assorted French pastries – cocktail cream puff, chocolate eclair, marble cheese cake, strawberry fruit tarts – and Honeydew Melon with Chilled Sago
* Beverage: Apple Cordial
And this was legit, legit food, not the cold cut catering you get at most events. It sometimes feels like catering swings from extremes – either the really standard but kind of boring catered food, or the incredibly expensive canapés that you eat and then go grab a macs burger after. Oh’s provided a fantastic bridge, with really, really good food that also comes in servings big enough to fill your guests up. This is their festive set, going at $27.50/pax but they’ve got other sets as low as $17.50/pax too.
Imran (drea’s boyfriend) actually arrived a bit later and when he started eating he went This food is the sex! during an unfortunate lull in conversation, much to Drea’s horror.
If you are intending to get Ohs Farm to cater your event, be sure to mention either Andrea or I when booking to get a free pastry assortment platter for the catering order, so long as you spend a minimum of $350/delivery.
Door Gifts/ Goody Bags were also awesome, even if i’m saying so myself. Really really grateful to the following sponsors for being so generous:
Playboy Fragrances For Him &Her. This is their latest Superhero line released for the festive season, and I think you can get it in Watsons and most departmental stores. I’ve worked with Star Asia before for the Playboy VIP x Asia’s Next Top Model campaign, and they’ve also been incredibly generous to me over the past year, so I’m really happy to be working with them again. And also, if it’s good enough for the ANTM girls, you know it’s good enough for you.
Fish eye, Telephoto, iPhone color filter and Macro phone camera lenses, courtesy of Ming from Peek Singapore. The fish eye lens is so trippy I swear – you snap the lenses on with this magnetic ring and immediately all your photos look like some holographic drug trip without the actual.. drugs. I brought it with me to Guangzhou this week and check it out:
Yup.
Talk about an epic door gift. So applicable to anyone who has a camera phone (which is.. everyone) and so impressive. It’s retailing at about $25bucks on other sites like photojojo, but you can get it at $15 from the Peek online store / walk in at 36 Armenian Street #01-04. I think they’re having a christmas sale now too if you walk in, and if you’re a film buff you’ll love it – they have lomo cameras, impossible project films, and so much more analog photography equipment.
There’s some famous saying that Christmas season is all about candy. Or maybe I made that up. But check out these adorable jars of christmas themed sticky rock candy!!! So much color and santa faces for the kid in you. Huge thanks to Keow Yuen from LollyTalk for these babies – you can get them at their Plaza Singapura Shop, B2-20. This is their Christmas Mix because it’s only appropriate, surely, but I was eyeing up the minion designs.. which is so perfect, you know, if you’re wracking your brains over mass christmas gifts for kids that are also extremely presentable.
Christmas Soap balls!!!!!!! These are courtesy of April from Lush Singapore. They’re responsible for that wonderful smell in the Wisma basement/ Suntec atrium. I feel like they’re the famous amos of soap, you know? Free smells, and then you want to buy up the whole shop. Anyway, they’ve just released their christmas line so each of our guests got a couple of soap balls in various christmas themed shapes. You pop them in your bath and have like some magical bath soak experience. If you don’t have a bath tub, do what i did – stick them in a pretty glass jar and put them in your room. Now my entire room smells like fairies and flowers.
Atas tea sets from Betjeman and Barton. They sent us tea caddies and satches of amazing sounding things like English Breakfast and Autumn Blend – and you can also get them from their Raffles City B1-33 outlet or via their online shop.
Jara Petit Cheesecups – which is exactly what it sounds like, cheesecake in a cupcake form. Great for people who can never finish a cheesecake on their own because it’s too jelat. My favorite was the Strawberry cup, but they come in all of nine flavors including Durian, Matcha, and of course, Original. They cost $3 each or $12 for a box of 4 / $25 for a box of 9.
Preorder them at jara.petit@gmail.com | Website
And finally, the perfect party dress – Her Velvet Vase very generously sent me their Gatsby Embellished Swing Dress in black for the party, so appropriate for the black and white theme with a hint of sparkle.
While wrapping up the party with exhilarated smiles and exhausted feet I thought to myself how frequently I am blown away by the kindness showered upon us by strangers. A huge round of thanks to everyone who helped out, our fantastic sponsors, and of course, the best company a party could ask for.
Cheers to the end of the year.
Have a great Christmas you guys. x
x
♥jem