Kids Christmas party with a difference

Cookie invited Webby, Sean and I to a Christmas party for orphans sometime ago. It was an annual party organised by a group of gay guys and sounded absolutely fascinating. We readily volunteered to help out. A couple of days before the party, Cookie tells me that we're meeting at 8am at Crowne Plaza Mutiara Hotel.

8am? On a Sunday morning?! I blinked at her. She explained that the kids will arrive around 10, so we need to blow balloons and deoorate the room. I blinked some more.

Blow balloons? Er.. how many balloons? My initial enthusiasm and magnanimity started waning ever so slightly.

Oh about 100 or so, she replied. I blinked rapidly. But there will be around 40 people there to help so it should be okay, she added. Relieved, we agreed to turn up at 8am on Sunday 18 December.

We eventually arrived at the Hotel around 8.15am and found the lower penthouse buzzing with people dressed in red and white.

Oh I forgot to tell you that the theme was red and white, Cookie said nonchalantly, dressed in a purple dress herself. Doryness is obviously contagious.

I'd not seen so many gay boys outside of Liquid for a long time. All dressed in cute little tight red shirts and white bottoms and vice versa. Very santa indeed. Someone had donated a helium tank so with Santa's many helpers, the balloons were filled, tied up with shiny silver or green or pink (of course) ribbons and released quickly.

The children from Sunbeam home arrived first. All dressed in black t-shirts with 'sunbeam' embroidered in yellow thread. There were a lot of them! They ran in and promptly attacked the balloons. I've never seen kids so excited about balloons. Then the kids from the other home arrived - the Agathians. Cookie was so excited about the gay thing, she called them the 'A-Gay-thians' as opposed to the 'A-geh-thians'.

Cookie, Webby and I were conscripted to be party games coordinators. I was initially horrified because I'm not good with kids but it turned out to be great. The kids were split into 5 groups of roughly 15-20 kids each, and they had to pick a name for their group. We had lionking, tiger, puma (that's US!), kingkong and donkey (no comment). We played a few games, of which the most popular was the bong game. We didn't win any of the games but I think everyone had a good time.

Food was served after the games, donated by Tai Thong, Domino's Pizza and the Hotel itself. Pretty yummy food actually. Then a magician/entertainer called Jee came. He was great with the kids! Bibi and Faery even turned up for support. After that was present time, when a Santa Claus sat on the podium and cheerfully doled out all the gifts donated from various kind corporations, like Padini. Each present was personally addressed with the names of each child, which was a nice touch.

We were supposed to do carolling, and Sean had been looking forward to that part of the day, but time ran out and before we knew it, the party was over and it was time to go home.

I thought it was absolutely fabulous that a bunch of queens could come together and organise such a wonderfully, selfless and meaningful event. Just before they left, the Sunbeam kids sang a little thank you song which brought a tear to the eyes of many of the organisers.

So thanks Cookie, for inviting us..... thanks all the great guys who organised it for doing such a fantastic job, and thanks to all the kids, who made us feel like we did something good.