Birthday Celebrations in Lim Family.

The month of October is always a crazy month for my family. There are 3 birthdays in our family of 7, so we have to have 3 birthday dinners at 3 different restaurants, 3 different birthday ice cream cakes, and the craziest part is shopping for presents for 3 different individuals with different tastes.

The preparation for a birthday in the Lim family starts with ordering of a bouquet of flowers for the birthday girl. The trend in the family is to buy a huge bouquet that is trimmed with fur. Yah, fur. I'm not a fan of it, but my other sisters are crazy about fur. Here is my sister with it. She's gorgeous, the fur is not.



The furry bouquet will be delivered to the house in the afternoon, so that the birthday girl will be 'surprised' by the flower, even though we all *know* it will definitely come.

At night, all 7 of us (5 sisters + mommy + papa) will go out for the birthday dinner. For so many years, the choice of restaurant has always been Thai. My family have this thing about spicy food, you see. Every year we'll say we will have something else other than Thai food, but we'll still end up in a Thai restaurant in One Utama or Midvalley Megamall. Everyone will order a dish, and we will end up ordering way too much for 7 persons. But that doesn't matter, because dessert is dessert, a birthday is still a birthday, and we still need to have our red rubies.

Ok after dinner, some of us might choose to walk around the shopping center we are in, and some of us will choose to go home straight (normally me, am not a fan of window-shopping). When the stores close and everyone is at home, the cake is brought out to the dining table. It's always an ice cream cake. ALWAYS. Most of the time we buy the ice cream cake from Haagen Dazs, and sometimes we give markah kesian to Baskin Robbins and buy the cake from there. Haagen Dazs is definitely more expensive, but we get more value for money because the whole thing is made of ice cream (except the heart shape ones) whereas Baskin Robbins ice cream cake is made of ice cream + cake. Well, I guess you can say my family members are experts in ice cream cakes. To digress a little, Baskin Robbins ice cream cake has improved over the years. The composition of ice cream to cake has increased. :D



Together with the cake we will also have sparkling fruit juice served in crystal wine glass. Haha so funny, drink something so cheap in a glass so expensive. But my family are non drinkers, so we'll just follow the majority lah. Our favourite is the Eva Apple Sparkling Juice. There's the Red Grapes Sparkling Juice and White Grapes Sparkling Juice, but that's just too sweet for us. Anyways, I guess the sparkling juice is to make the occasion more festive-like. Am not sure who started it and its origins though.

When we're done with the cake cutting, its present time! Oops it should be presentS because usually we are bombarded with at least 10 presents. The present opening part is exciting because all you do is guess what's inside boxes and rip the wrappings apart. To wrap the presents up evokes a different emotion altogether.



The thing about buying lots of presents for the birthday girl is the difficulty you will face in choosing presents few years down the road. By then the birthday girl would already have so many things (photo frame lah, decorative crystal lah etc) that you have to think so hard to buy them presents. So this year we had a discussion and came to agreement that we will specify the present that we want, and there will only be ONE present. Easier, definitely. Cheaper, maybe not. Come ask me what I want :D

After all the cutting cake, drinking sparkling juice and ripping presents apart, dad will go to his bedroom, signifying the party is over. Sometimes we sit a bit longer chatting between mom and daughters. When the party is really over, everyone will race to their rooms because nobody wants to clean up the dishes, glasses and clear the wrapping papers. The last two will have to clear the dishes and tidy the whole place up. It's really funny seeing 5 girls racing up the stairs.

Well, this year will be slightly different. Instead of going out, we will have steamboat at home. Instead of having 3 different birthday dinners, we will have only one joint celebration. There will only be ONE present for each of us. I wonder what I should ask for. Actually I already know lah :)

Ok, can't wait till steamboat on Friday. 让我来下厨房. Hahaaahhahahahah