Reunion dinner
After months of spring cleaning and buzzling around to get all the new year goodies ready for the "big" day, the lunar new year finally came round. This year, reunion dinner was at a restaurant - our family's very first experience.
All their life and ours, my parents had been those who prefer to have home-cooked meal around the table, so we have been eating at home, never once outside of it =) The flip side is of course, the busyness and preparation since the morning of CNY eve, cooking in the kitchen, washing up all the dishes, mopping the floor and getting ready for lunar day 1 - all can be a real "nightmare".
Well, eating out has its advantage and flip side, definitely. In terms of preparation, there is zero work needed to be done - you just have to arrive at the restaurant at the time you booked the slot, be seated, be served, eat the dishes served fresh from the oven, etc. The down side is that there's no "atmosphere" of reunion and celebration. At home, we can just be ourselves, talking a little louder, enjoying laughter and cracking silly jokes as we enjoy each other's company, etc.Eating at home makes it feel more like a reunion - at the restaurant we have to split into 2 tables of 8 each, and as a result, it just feels ... Moreover, because of the busyness of the restaurant staff, we don't feel so "attended" to - our pot of tea takes more than 15 minutes to be refilled, the soft-drinks the kids ordered needed 2 reminders or more to be served, our saucers are not replaced with clean ones - we make do with it from course no. 1 to course no. 8 *SMILE*
Anyway, it was a good experience for all of us. We are now contemplating that for next year, we will cater for buffet style, probably getting 2 staff from the catering company to BBQ some stuff for us - and that means, we can still have our reunion dinner at home, relaxing and enjoying each other's company in a comfortable environment =)Well, it's good to have opportunities to be reunited with our loved ones during this season, but while we celebrate our love for each other, let us not forget those who are not as fortunate as us - those without families to celebrate with them, or those without a roof over their heads, or those away from home during this season. Bless them with God's goodness and love too!
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