About 48 hours, after arriving back in Singapore after three weeks in Seattle, I hosted our book club's Christmas dinner.  Thankfully everyone generously brought a dish which helped a lot but I did struggle a bit to keep my eyes open after 10pm.  Our book for this month was the Goldfinch by Donna Tartt which is a giant of a novel, weighing in at 784 pages, but an intriguing book once I got into it. Thank goodness for long international flights, they are such a great opportunity to clock in some serious reading hours.  

   

A quick summary of the book is that it's a story about a boy who loses his mother in a very traumatic and tragic accident that he somehow survives along with a painting of a Goldfinch which ends up playing a critical and complicated role in this boy's life. 

Vicky brought the most amazing homemade desserts which she calls Cherry Ripe's.  Kingsley came home toward the end of the evening and polished off three of them within about 15 minutes.  Behind the desserts in the photo is the 3lb Christmas tree candle that I impulsively bought in Seattle and then had to pack in my carry-on bag as my luggage was at (slightly above) maximum capacity.  Unfortunately TSA did not like the looks of my festive candle so we (the candle and I) were pulled out of the security screening line, tested for explosives, and scanned multiple times before they finally let us through security.  For the record it was totally worth it, I love my candle and may just have to make it a permanent fixture!

Sara and Audrey carve the turkey!

My 4th book club Christmas photo and somehow I managed to look like Where's Waldo.