Pajama Party Singapore Style

One of my favorite nights of the year back in Houston was my Christmas pajama party. It was an opportunity to get all my friends under one roof to celebrate Christmas and to give back in a big way. We donated pajamas to the women and children at a local shelter. I loved it. It just felt good to give.

I have been trying to not recreate my life in Houston here in Singapore, but this one tradition I just couldn't live without. This time I talked my partners in crime, Lisa and Tiffany, into hosting it with me. We came up with a guest list of friends we all knew, picked a night, and chose the Philippine House of Safety to give to. It's a house of safety that our church supports regularly and they are always in dire need of underwear for the women that seek shelter there. So, in the spirit of kicking it up a notch, we collected bras and underpants instead of pajamas. The response was incredible and I'm excited to hand it all off to the women that regularly go to serve at the shelter.

Although it has been funny watching the reaction of my boys when there's nothing but women's underwear under the tree. The walk a WIDE berth around the tree these days!

It was a very fun evening. My friend, Lisa, recently wrote a post on her blog about what it's like to make new friends here. You go into it knowing it's going to be temporary. You may have 3 months, 1 year, or 3 years with your friend before someone in the relationship moves away, but you have to be willing to invest. You jump into friendships here because you have to have them to survive and you just can't think about the good-byes. It's a risk worth taking and we felt it only fitting to celebrate that.

It wasn't the same as back home and that's good. It needed to be new and different. For one thing, having a bunch of women over when living in an apartment means your kids have a more difficult time staying sequestered....especially if they happen to be the over curious type or the type that likes to continue sampling all the treats well after their sampling services are no longer needed.

The one thing that did and will always stay the same? The hot chocolate bar. We cranked down the air con and pretended like it wasn't sticky hot and humid and mustered up some holiday spirit with some hot chocolate.

It is hard to believe that one week from today we will be traveling back to the states. In some ways this last 6 months has flown and in other ways it feels like forever since we've been in Texas. All of us are looking forward to time with family and friends, overindulging in types of food we've been deprived of for so long.

Now if we could get some snow while we're there it will be just about perfect!