December 2016

HOME & PROPERTY

Laust ceramic brown and bronze plate, $39; Cleo metal star, $5; Cole set of three hearts, $24.

We chat with KRISTIN PAPASOLOMONTOS of Galanga Living about her plans for family festivities this year, and we take a look at the cool furniture and Christmas décor in her store.

Do you have any family traditions at Christmas?

Our family is Greek-Cypriot-British-Norwegian- Singaporean, and we try to incorporate different aspects of our cultures throughout the year to create our own special third-culture blend. We aim to keep ties to our home traditions as well as incorporate Singaporean ones. We always go to church on Christmas Eve, to the family service at St George’s; then we have a “feast”, as my children call it. We watch the Portable North Pole Santa video – we’ve done this since my eldest, who turns 13 this year, was young; my youngest is five and she really loves it. We also always read The Night Before Christmas at bedtime. Because we’re far away from family at this time, our expat community becomes our family. So we started a tradition of having a drop-in drinks party before the schools close for Christmas, and then we have a Boxing Day tradition where we get together for a large brunch at the British Club with several other families. Oh, and our children’s school, Nexus International School, does a great carol service at the beginning of December. We always go to that, too – it’s such a lovely community event.

Where will you be for Christmas this year, and what will you do on the day? We’ll be in Singapore; in fact, we usually are, simply because after 11 years in Asia we no longer own any winter clothes that fit! We do pretty much the same thing every year: the children wake up and open their stocking (buying us some important sleeping time), then we go downstairs and open presents under the tree. We generally have the main elements of dinner delivered by Mr Hoe of Hoe Brothers Catering. He is a great resource for when you don’t want to cook, and we started getting Christmas dinner delivered from himwhen the children were very small and we were very sleep-deprived. We do some parts ourselves – chipolatas wrapped in bacon, the potatoes, the gravy and the stuffing – but he does the main bird. We always have trifle and a Christmas log for dessert.

63 DECEMBER2016