My late father was a huge fan of Nat King Cole’s and often regaled us with his classic Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire) during the Cape Town Christmas holidays.

Of course Cape Town temperatures often exceed 30degrees celsius so we had no understanding of that song, other than our dad doing it so well… all the time pottering around on our Yamaha electric organ. He did too. Also, chestnuts aren’t big in South Africa so that entire experience was lost on us as kids.

Until I moved to Asia.

I first encountered chestnuts (and cold Decembers) living in Northern Taiwan.

Roaming Taipei city, shopping for Christmas gifts, I often encountered street vendors selling hot, roasted chestnuts to eager passers-by.

But it was here in Hong Kong that I grew to love not only the hot nuts, but also the smell of the coal fire and roasting nuts being churned manually on the streets of this bustling city.

I bought some today just outside the Tin Hau MTR and took some pics:

One pound of roasted chestnuts coming up…

Here’s the great Nat King Cole…

As I said in my previous post, we spent Christmas day at the Gold Coast Hotel for their Christmas Champagne Brunch.

I know that back home in Cape Town the tradition is to have a HUGE Christmas lunch followed by an afternoon nap, only to be followed by more food.

Here in Hong Kong we like to take a walk after a HUGE lunch and out on the Gold Coast, one place to walk off the huge lunch is to the Gold Coast Piazza.

My son Ethan took the following pictures:

No guessing what the Christmas theme at the Gold Coast Piazza is! (Pics: Ethan Jansen)

After spending last Chistmas at the Venetian Hotel in Macau, we decided to stay home this year.

As we did 2 years ago, we booked our Christmas lunch at the Gold Coast Hotel.

However, this time around, we made reservations for the Atrium Lobbe Lounge’s Christmas Champagne Brunch after having tried The Cafe Lagoon’s fare in 2008.

It turned out to be a great choice because a great time was had be all!

Here are some pics:

I did say it was a CHAMPAGNE brunch, didn’t I?! (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Brunch was a 3 1/2 hour affair… I just managed to squeeze dessert in! (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Sugar-Heaven! The dessert corner at the Gold Coast Hotel Atrium (Pic: Mike Jansen)

What is a Hong Kong lunch without Peking Duck?! (Pics: Mike Jansen)

The Atrium Champagne Brunch is a great venue for families with kids (Pics: Mike Jansen)

My family attended midnight mass at the St. John’s Anglican Cathedral in Central last night.

The service was being broadcast live on RTHK (English) which could account for the packed church.

I always overheat (despite it being winter) so I didn’t mind sitting in the garden with about another 200-odd people watching the service on a big-screen.  Those who have been in that part of Central will agree that the St.John’s cathedral Garden is a magical place what with the beautifully-lit HSBC and China Bank building right next door.

Howzit-HongKong.com wishes all our readers and all South Africans in Hong Kong a Blessed Festive Season and a Prosperous New Year!

I managed to Tweet these 2 pics from the Cathedral Garden:

Few cities around the world can beat Hong Kong when it comes to it’s city-wide Christmas light-shows.

One would think that, with the world-wide focus on power-saving geared towards a greener earth, that the city-fathers would rather encourage developers and building/mall-owners to spend less on electrifying their Harbour-side properties.

Not Hong Kong!

From the heavy competition between Malls, tourist attractions such as DisneyLand, to restaurants and sky-scrapers… millions of dollars are spent over the festive season.

The DisneyLand castle’s faux snow.

IFC Mall in Central. HK’s hundreds of malls all compete for business… (Pic: Flickr)

Tsim Sha Tsui East, near my apartment in Hung Hom

I found this YouTube clip to show you the view of the skyline on either side of Victoria Harbour: