Paloma about town: Yuletide cheer and a brand new watering hole in Chennai

Christmassy fun continued all over the city this week with tree lighting ceremonies really helping to bring in some much-needed yuletide cheer. The trail began at Crowne Plaza Chennai Adyar Park, where actress Aishwarya Rajesh along with the children from CRY, joined guests in the festivities, which included Christmas carols and dinner. A 14-foot tall tree was the star of the show, along with the largest gingerbread house in the city, lovingly put together by the team of chefs. The next stop was at ITC Grand Chola, going the modern route with an upcycled Christmas tree made entirely from waste plywood and packing wood. ‘Woody’, which is what the tree has lovingly been named got its fair share of attention with lots of photos.

We also saw the launch of a few new spots in the city, so let's check them off the list one by one. Midweek saw the launch of The Living Room, a restobar in Anna Nagar. Chennai’s popular faces turned up in their designer digs to check out the new watering hole. Next up was Huzzle, a gaming café in Nungambakkam also seeing quite a gathering, despite being a drizzly evening. The final stop on the launch list was at 24K, a luxury salon, in Anna Nagar, which also launched their beauty training institute - 24K Academy. Doing the honours was actress Aathmika, while we also spotted a few of our favourite make-up artists in attendance.

Rounding off the event scene were two very different events, giving us some serious variety this week. First was Jadau by JCS Jewellers, a two-day exhibition at Fika. With everyone slowly gathering up the courage to step outside and do a little shopping, pop-ups are finally going back to being the crowd-pullers that they used to be. The second was the launch of the new Nissan Magnite, taking things into a slightly different gear, pun intended. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist). As with most car events, we saw the usual mix of hardcore automobile enthusiasts, the mildly curious and those that were there for the party. When there’s a fancy car there are always loads of selfies, and this event was no different.