My friend sent me a text message asking which mall in Ipoh has the best Christmas decoration this year. I replied, “None.” I didn’t let him know that despite being teased that I am “Ipoh Mally”, I haven’t been to too many malls around Christmas time to be able to make a fair comparison.

Actually, I like this decoration of Santa Claus and his reindeer which hung from the ceiling of the concourse area in Ipoh Parade. Normally, I already like the curtain of hanging lights. With Santa Claus being pulled by reindeers on his sleigh, it really fits into the Christmas theme.

My photos were actually shot quite a few days ago but I was there as well earlier this evening to catch their Christmas Samba and Rumba Dance Performance. There were only three dances performed by two dancers only. Yes, two dancers, three dances, that’s all. Even so, this sort of made up for the disastrous performance last evening even though this couple is also from the same dance school and also performed last evening. It must have been those kids.

Merry Christmas!

I bumped into this mini Christmas performance by a Church group in Ipoh Parade three evenings ago. I wasn’t expecting anything special even though I knew before hand that there would be a three day weekend Yellow Christmas Celebration with DiGi event so I didn’t bring along my Olympus. I did take a video of this performance with my Nokia E61i but the quality is too awful made worse by YouTube.

This church group produced a CD of Christmas songs which they were selling at the event for RM20 each. The audience was encouraged to support them by buying the CD, which was entirely made in Ipoh. The emcee also said that the producer did not sleep for a few days because he was rushing this CD out. Of course la, he should have started this project six months before Christmas. DUH!

Anyway, I did not buy the CD. I don’t have any Christmas CDs or even Chinese New Year music CDs for the matter. These songs give me goose bumps. I do like Christmas pop songs, though, just not traditional ones like “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”

After this performance, there was a Santa Claus sit-in. Children 12 and below were allowed to make a wish and have their pictures taken with Santa Claus. This Santa was really “fake”. Too bad I did not have a photo of him because by then I already went upstairs. I say “fake” because although he wore a Santa Claus costume, he did not have a wig at all but just wore his typical Santa Claus cap and stuck beard on his face. Oh, and he did not have a belly at all, so unlike the Santa Claus that we have known since young and loved.

I have some other Christmas posts to write about and more Christmas photos to publish but I am not feeling too great right now. Let’s see if I have the mood to write more later.

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Please lend me a helping hand by voting for my blog on this voting page and pass this request on to your friends so that I could win. Voting ends at 5pm EST on 15th December, 2008 (6am on 16th December, 2008 Malaysian time) so there isn’t much time left.

If I win, I will hold a blog competition here. Would you be my Santa Claus so that I could be yours?

I went to Ipoh Parade last evening and it was absolutely crowded. Luckily I did not reach that any earlier as there was a Tae-Kwando competition. Although by the time I reached the concourse area, it was already over, there were still plenty of people mingle around. I actually took the above photo a few days ago. I wouldn’t be able to even see it last evening as they set up the stage for the Tae-Kwando competition and totally blocked out this beautiful stage decoration.

Coincidentally, there was a Santa Claus walkabout. Poor guy, I remember that Santa Clauses here seem to receive very poor reception from the children. He had to give out sweets and candies to even teenagers. LOL Also, I would like to point out to the management that this Santa Claus costume and the ones that I saw in previous Christmases at Ipoh Parade don’t seem fresh.

Well, Santa Claus posed for me but it was always the wrong timing; he only put up the peace sign after I pressed the shoot button. I wanted to ask him if he would be dancing this year but I didn’t. He probably wouldn’t even know what I am taking about.

Ipoh Parade also erected this huge Christmas tree. It’s nothing special but it seems like the taller the tree, the bigger the attraction.