Pre-Christmas Party

Venue: Pizza Paikka Ala Riesto, 6-9 pm

Cast of Characters:

1. Me!!!
2. MC = my Brit friend who's the organizer of the party
3. NA = my Russian friend who just gave birth early December
4. SU = another Brit friend who's due to give birth today
5. IN = another Russian friend who's 7 months' pregnant
6. HL = our Finnish class teacher

MC, the organizer of the party, told each of us to bring a little gift (not more than €5) and each of us had to write a name of an animal on top of the gift. Turned out that she had created fun games for us HE HE HE HE HE HE HE...She also brought some Christmas decorations for our table (as you can see later in the pics) and some Christmas crackers (cardboard cylinders covered with decorative papers and pop when the ends are pulled) imported from England.

Anyway, when I came to the restaurant, HL (our teacher) was there and SU and NA had just arrived. We started talking to each other and not long after that, MC (our organizer) came. Then I took this picture (I have written down their initials there) ---> MC is the one on the left, then NA (who had a baby early Dec) sitting next to her, and SU (who's due to give birth today) sitting next to her, and on the right is our teacher.


As you can see, it's not a fancy restaurant, but the thing I like about this village is that you don't have to queue and there aren't any crowded places anywhere ha ha ha ha ha ha...No need to book, thank you very much hi hi hi hi...

Since IN still hadn't showed up and we were getting hungry, we ordered food first. IN finally came over at around 7 pm. Here's a pic of me with IN (7 months pregnant) and the Santa decoration that MC brought to make our table more festive HE HE HE HE HE...


Anyway, we started eating right away and then we stopped for a while to play our first game. MC had prepared a text to read. We were told to hold our own gifts in hand and we had to be ready to pass it along to the left or right according to the text she read. If we heard "left" on the text, we had to pass it along to the left. If we heard "right", we had to pass it to the right. It was FUN he he he he he...

I got MC's gift and SU got my gift. Funny thing is that I wrapped my gift in a box of Kebab frozen package and SU didn't open it even though everybody else was busy opening their gifts right away. I got two fridge magnets from MC and the others got different stuff. At first I thought that SU wanted to save the best for later, but then I got suspicious that she probably thought I had given her some KEBAB meat for real!!!! I even got more worried since MC said to SU, "Hey, shouldn't you put it in the fridge?" LOL LOL!!!

I tried to give a hint to SU by saying, "Please don't bang the package, SU!" (since there was a fragile angel decoration inside the package though I had wrapped it safely). Before the end of the party, I was thinking to myself, "Uhhhh...what if she really thinks it's kebab meat and then she puts it in the fridge for future use and then when she decides she wants to cook kebab, she opens it and gets the surprise of her life? No can do! I have to tell her now!"

So I finally said, "By the way, SU, you didn't think it was kebab inside, did you?" To be honest, I actually saw her face looking a bit disappointed when she opened my gift wrapper and found the kebab meat package inside HI HI HI HI HI HI HI...She was stunned when she heard me say that and then she took out the package from her bag. She said, "I thought it was REALLY kebab inside. I just thought that in Indonesia maybe Father Christmas gave food as gifts." MC couldn't help laughing like crazy since she also thought that it was kebab. LOL LOL LOL!!! She was laughing really hard for a few minutes HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE...

SU opened the gift and she was happy to find the angel decoration. I think she was happy to get the decoration since she also bought a different angel decoration as a gift (our teacher HL got it) HE HE HE HE HE...Then she gave me a hug HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...MC said, "Oh, Amel, that was brilliant!" Well, I didn't actually plan to mislead anyone by putting my gift inside the kebab box. It didn't even cross my mind that someone might think that I actually gave frozen kebab meat as a X-mas gift hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi...but SU said while opening it, "It was packed really neatly as if the box had never been opened yet!" HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...

OK, enough laughing hi hi hi...anyway, unfortunately our teacher HL couldn't stay longer 'coz her hubby had picked her up at 8 pm, but the rest of us stayed there until it was close to 9 pm.

These are some things I found out through our conversation:

1. Christmas in Russia is celebrated on January 6th.
2. Nobody can give birth in Sodankylä's health centre, so if I need to give birth later on, my hubby has to drive me to Rovaniemi (1.5 hours away from here). YIKES!!! However, I also found out from NA who just gave birth in Rovaniemi that the service there was EXCELLENT! YES!!! At least I'll be in good care there he he he he...
3. In England these days they try to "kick" women out of the hospital as fast as they can once they give birth (as long as they're healthy and there's no problem after the delivery then they go home in 6 hours or just one day), whereas in Finland for the first born, usually they keep the mother in the hospital for 4 days.
4. Moscow is like a different country, separated from other parts of Russia. Even the people there are different and everything's different. Moscow people are colder and they look down on people from other countries or even different areas of Russia.
5. Christmas Eve is a really big tradition for Finnish (gather with their family and open gifts, eat pork ham and stuff). This is my first Christmas Eve here, so I'll report on the food later on he he he he he...

Anyway, back to the party. Then we pulled our Christmas crackers and we found crowns inside, so we put it on our heads HA HA HA HA HA HA...We were officially queens then HE HE HE HE HE...

First pic: MC and NA. And yes, we all ordered pizza HA HA HA HA HA...We couldn't eat the whole portion ourselves, so we brought the rest home. YAAAAAYYYY!!!! ;-D


Next pic: SU is holding the rest of the Christmas cracker he he he he...


Next pic: Queen Amel and Queen IN HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...My face looks SO oily since I put on lots of lotion and olive oil hi hi hi hi...but I feel good no matter what since I have my crown HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...


Oh, almost forgot to tell you the second game. The second game was related to the animals written on our gifts. Since I got MC's gift with "pig" on it, then I had to sound like one. The game is Animal Bingo. Each of us had to write down 5 numbers (any number from 1 to 25), then MC would pick each of the number out of the bag she's prepared (she brought a gift especially for this game) and if the number she mentioned was written on my piece of paper, I had to snort like a pig and cross the number out HE HE HE HE HE...The other animals were cow, cat, dog, sheep, and rooster he he he he he...

In the end, the cat (IN) won the game. The winner had to stand up and make the animal sound three times HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...so she meowed three times while standing up LOL LOL!!!! MC is REALLY creative, isn't she?????

Anyway...I'd LOVE to do this again sometime hi hi hi hi hi...girls' night out is ALWAYS the best, don't you think so? *wink*