Happiness is... enjoying a whirlwind year-end holiday

We always look forward to December because it is always a month filled with lots of fun activities, celebrations, gatherings and family vacations. December 2025 was no exception and in fact, it was one of the best year end holidays we've ever had.

Let's see, besides going for family walks, visits to Sentosa, indoor playgrounds and two camps, we also had BBQs, playdates, family get-togethers, movie dates and a Christmas gift exchange. The most important highlight had to be our epic 9D8N road trip to Malaysia where we visited Kuala Lumpur, Genting, Cameron Highlands and Melaka. Yes, super exciting!

Of course, we also celebrated Ariel and Asher's birthdays and I can't wait to share more about their celebrations. We also counted down to 2026 and ended the year 2025 with a big bang.

In this post of "Happiness is...", it's about thoroughly enjoying a whirlwind holiday with my loved ones.

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Guess where we were? We were at the southernmost point of continental Asia, woohoo! To get here, we crossed the iconic rope suspension bridge at Palawan Beach in Sentos and the views were amazing!

You know why I love school holidays so much? Because we get to spend so much time together and the kids get to hang out with each other too. Sure, they will never stop bickering or criticising each other but to look on the bright side, they also play together, look for insects together and have fun together.

Since a couple of years ago, I've tried to instill a healthier lifestyle and that means making time to work out, exercise and keep fit. Better still if we do it as a family. Some of my friends often refer to us as the 'sporty' and 'outdoorsy' family and they are absolutely right about there.

This time, we cycled and ran to Coney Island because the kids love to go to the beach and look for marine creatures there. We ended the evening with a yummy mookata meal - which probably added lots of calories and rendered our exercise effort useless - but it was so worthwhile and we seriously love having a good mookata meal together.

Just a day before we set off on our long road trip, we were still attending events and travelling across the island. The kids had lots of fun at Airzone in City Square Mall where we climbed ropes, overcame obstacles, whizzed down slides and even played laser tag too. Yup, laser tag was the most fun bit as we teamed up and competed with another family. I think my kids are like me, kinda competitive and have the desire to win when it comes to such events.

We love Luge and can never get enough of it. So whenever we get a media invite, the kids will all try to make time for it. This time, we got to whizz down all the four different slopes despite it drizzling earlier and we all enjoyed it very much. It's always a challenge for me because I have ride tandem with the 5yo and still be able to film ourselves and the other three kids. Yeap, but seeing the big smiles on their faces, it's all worthwhile.

We watched a couple of movies in the cinemas this month because it's something that we all enjoy and I usually get one to two hours of peace to sit back and relax, haha. So we caught Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (we watched the first movie during Halloween) and also Anancondo. The former was a scary thriller that kept us at the edge of our seats while the latter was a comedy that made us laugh and chuckle.

It might be a busy month but there's always time to meet up with good friends. We visited Steven's house which has nine cats and and over 40 birds and the kids were so, so in love with the felines and wished they could stay there longer.

Our friends also came to our place to eat and swim together and we had these poppers which we let the kids play and inside each of them was a fun riddle which we could take turns to solve.

The hubby and I also hosted a barbeque cum playdate session for some my mummy friends and their lovely families. I took time to pump lots of cute inflatables for the kids to play while the hubby took charge of the food.

I also brought the boys to feed the horses at Gallop Stable at Downtown East while the girls chose to wait it out and then head straight to the next venue to meet us. Since they have different likes and dislikes and teenagers have a mind of their own, I now get it that we need to split up sometimes so that everyone can be do what he/she wants and be happy.

The good thing is that the two sisters still go to indoor playgrounds with us once in a while so Ansel still has plenty of siblings to play with. He adores his Korkor and Jiejies and love it when they do kiddy stuff with him.

There are also times when I would just bring the two boys out when the girls head out with their friends and stay back in school for CCA. Although their age gap is over five years, these two can still play the same kind of games and get along well together. Thank goodness they have each other.

We also attended two fun camps which took up almost two weeks in December already. The first was a Science camp by Cognutive Whizz and the kids were thrilled to learn about Science concepts, visit farms, take home black soldier flies and even create a terrarium for isopods too. This would be Ariel's last Science camp with us so it made it even more memorable.

The next camp was an Adventure camp with Newtonshow Camp which brought us to a different place every day of the five days. We visited Rainforest Wild, Lee Kong Chien Museum, Snow City, Jurong Lake Gardens, East Coast Park, Pasir Ris Park and more. It was an exhausting but fun-filled week for the kids and myself, who tagged along everywhere, and likewise, it was Ariel's last adventure camp and we are surely gonna miss her in future.

This was the first time I crocheted a beanie on my own and it was for the big sister who turned 16 recently. It is one of the easiest patterns you can find but I am still just very happy that I did it all by myself.

We love hotpots so we were happy to get the chance to have a mum-and-kids dinner at Wang Lu. The kids like to cook their own food so this was a good way to keep them busy, happy and full, and also make sure they eat what they cook and get a good balance of nutrients.

But most of the time, we will be eating at food courts and kopitiams because it is just too expensive otherwise. Plus, the food here can really be good like this tissue prata and coin prata we had were really crispy and good.

So about the road trip I mentioned, we embarked on it on 15 December and returned at wee hours on Christmas Eve so that we could still celebrate Christmas Day with our families. We stayed three nights in KL, two nights in Genting, two nights in Cameron Highlands and one night in Melaka. I will be sharing more in depth in the upcoming posts because there's just so much to share and you bet I took lots of videos too so stay tuned for those.

It was a superb and absolutely unforgettable trip that saw us spending lots of time together as a family of six and we are so proud that our secondhand car made it to so many places and back. Haha. From safaris and zoos to theme parks and farms, we visited so many places and I'm glad that the kids had a ball of a time too.

On Christmas Day, the kids found their presents under the tree and were thrilled that Santa gave them those as well as drank the milk and ate the cookies they had left for him.

Even though we had yet to recover from the trip, we still hosted a family gathering where the hubby cooked whereas I packed the house and logcakes to share. Well, I was also in charge of getting ALL the gifts, which include for our parents, nieces, nephews, kids, brother, sis-in-law and so on, as well as wrapping them all. Yeap, in our house, it's always the mum's job. But that's also what makes Christmas so fun because we get to spread love and joy on others and sprinkling some on ourselves too.

The kids, without a doubt, love this festive season for secular reasons and it is the time of the year where they can receive lots of gifts and hopefully get one or two items on their wish lists.

Whenever the family comes together, magic happens and December was definitely a truly whimsical month filled with lots of fun and happy memories. What a wonderful way to end off the year 2025.

Till more happiness posts in the new year!