The Nuffnang Team's Christmas Dinner '09

Ever since Nuffnang started, it has always been a Nuffnang tradition that every year end, the Nuffnang team would have a Christmas dinner together just to get together at the end of the year.

Last year instead of a Christmas dinner we did a Christmas lunch and it was held in Singapore.

This year however we held it in KL.

To add on to the Christmas Dinner, every year we also have a Secret Santa initiative where everyone is supposed to receive a present from a secret someone on that night. This was how some of our presents looked like last year in Singapore.

And this is the one THIS year!

The table seems to get longer and longer each year. Today there are some 40 people who work at Nuffnang all over the region but due to the logistics and depending on everyone's personal schedule not everyone makes it down for the dinner.

This year some 20 of us made it.

Here are some of the Nuffies that made it that night.

Elaine, Robb and Firdauz

Raine, Michelle and Rina

Karen, Elise, Jestina and Shun Yau

Xin Xian, Soon Tak and Yee Hou

At the dinner, Ming ordered like a huge slab of steak just for himself.

Something like 1.5kg I think. The surprise look on his face when he saw the size of the steak was priceless.

He ended up sharing it with everyone else.

Throughout the whole dinner, the Nuffies took turns to share what they hope to be able to see next year in Nuffnang (also another tradition) and of course Ming gave a speech.

Ming talked about how we're really grateful to have a really fun and open working environment here at Nuffnang where everyone treats each other like family but it's all up to each and every Nuffie to hold up our key Nuffnang principles and maintain this fun environment we have.

After all the great food and the sharing session was over, it was time for the highlight of the night. PRESENTS!!!

My secret Santa was one of our Singapore Nuffies who bought me an iPhone cover for my iPhone.

Yay! I'm using it now as we speak :)

I on the other was Raine's Secret Santa.

I was thinking really hard about what to buy Raine for Christmas but the thing that I always noticed about her was how she was very into make-up. So I knew she liked cosmetics and one thing I notice about my own girlfriend is that Princess is really into Japanese cosmetics. So I went to Japan and bought Raine a small bag of all different types of Japanese cosmetics.

I can't even remember what some of them are called... since I know so little about cosmetics. Fortunately I had Princess who did all the picking for me.

Raine liked the present... or at least she told me she did.

Now the Nuffies are really nice to both Ming and I. Every year they would prepare some kind of surprise for us. This year's surprise came in two big boxes.

Inside each box was a Christmas tree that was decorated with small little cards that closed up.

Each card was supposed to represent a Nuffie from the KL or Penang office and on the outside of the card they had a little clue about that person.

For example, one card wrote.

And inside the card was the person's face.

So they all made Ming and I play a game to take turns and guess who was behind each hint. Ming and I got like 60% of the guesses wrong... but it's not because we didn't know much about them. It's because the clues were like ridiculous.

Like one clue was "A pencil that needs constant sharpening".

Now what the hell was that supposed to mean?

To make matters worse for us, every time we got a guess wrong we had a punishment. Like they put on a pair of reindeer ears on our head all the way to shooting us with a water pistol.

In the end it was all in good fun and I went home that night with a great gift from the Nuffies. I always think that sometimes, the most thoughtful gifts are made... not bought.

So thank you Nuffies. Thank you for the great present and for the great night.

And to the rest of the Nuffies who didn't manage to make it that night, we all missed you!

Merry Christmas everyone!