The last meeting of the year 2017 was held on the evening of 15 December 2017 at the Chinese Success Media at Bras Basah Complex. The attendance was only 25 members, as many people were away on year-end vacations or engaged in year-end festive performances. The theme of the evening was “Festive or Holiday Magic”.

The first performer was Tommy Chiang. He had a deck of cards in which 52 different gifts were written on each of the backs. A spectator names his favourite card, and he got the gift card of a “magical kiss”, for which he promptly blew one towards the check of performer. It turns out that a “magical kiss” was predicted in advance by the performer. In the next effect, both the performer as well as the spectator mixed up a Rubik cube behind their backs. When both cubes were brought around, their mixed-up status matched exactly! Once again, Tommy brought his mixed-up cube behind his back and he solved it without even looking at the cube!

Joseph Loh and a spectator had a packet of 5 matching cards each. By transferring cards from the top of the packet to the bottom for each letter spelt at will for the phrase “GIVE YOU MY CHRISTMAS”, he caused each card of both packets to match perfectly.
Maxwell Low had a signed chosen card lost in a deck of cards, and then placed the boxed deck inside a Christmas theme envelope. He pierced the envelope with a thin screw-driver. The deck inside was unharmed, but the signed card was impaled on the screw-driver.

The coordinator for the first half of the evening was Victor Heng. He presented an interesting Chair Test combined with a musical chair theme, in which the president and 2 other members participated. Victor could predict which chair the president sat on and which hand the Christmas ball landed upon when the music stopped. Next, he played a Tic-Tac-Toe game with a spectator using 9 playing cards depicting the Ace to nine. At the end of the game, the cards arranged themselves in a 3 X 3 magic square with the recurring total of 15.

Alvin Terrence vanished a chosen card only to have it reappear inside the empty card box. A spectator cut out a random packet of cards. These cards arranged to form a cell phone number. It turned out to be that of the mobile phone of the performer.
The coordinator for the second half of the evening, Baharudin, brought along a cute animated toy baby wrapped in a cloth. He displayed a Trilogy-type deck of cards where random numbers were printed on their backs. 3 spectators chose 3 cards and the numbers on their backs were predicted in advance by Baharudin. He closed with his flagship effect: the hoovering borrowed coin using Tarantula.

Just before the break, Jeremy Pei gave a dealer’s show which included silk to wand, appearing parasol, jumbo 4 card revelation, and a pocket as well as a stage version of birthday visible painting. In the Christmas spirit of giving, Jeremy offered a large Christmas goody bag that contained at least a dozen magical items that were reviewed during the past 3 years. The bag was sold for $35 each. The contents inside could easily amount to 3 to 4 times more.

Santa appeared during the break in the form of our Italian restaurant-owner member Massimo Sacco. He who flew in from Bali just hours before. He brought along his personally baked Panettone (a challenging Christmas cake to make), in time to share his masterpiece during our break.

After the interval, newly inducted member Lim Kai Seng performed a Christmas themed act that comprised appearing rose, wand, candy sticks, a miniaturised Christmas tree, Christmas Star, and a Santa doll. Snow took the form of snow-storm in China.

New-comer Simon Hung took his induction test. He performed a card act which included Dr Daley’s Last Trick, an interesting cannibal cards routine, Twisting The Aces, and a 4 Aces sandwich effect.

Massimo Sacco successfully predicted which of 3 cards which had a picture of a gift box, a wrapping ribbon and a candy stick would be selected by a spectator. He then proved he could use the empty flimsy transparent wrapper of a card case to support a combined weight of a full boxed deck of playing cards and a cell phone as well.

Charles Choo showed 3 cards, which had their back design changed 3 times. Finally one card had a large hole through it and showed how all this was accomplished.

Continuing the festive magic theme was President John Teo. Featuring Valentine’s Day, he displayed 4 cards that depicted a rose each. Magically they changed into letters that formed the word L-O-V-E. He continued with a deck of cards whose backs suddenly became boldly printed with their identities.

Closing the evening was Jeremy Pei. He performed a comedy rabbit from top hat with himself as the human rabbit and a hat that seemed to be an inexhaustible source of carrots and bills. He showed an empty toy Santa boot and used it as a chop cup and performed an interesting chop cup routine using Christmas balls. His final loads contained Christmas items. Unlike the usual chop cup, his Santa boot cup did not contain any magnet, a clever and creative use of an ordinary toy Santa boot as a chop cup. He closed with a Rubik cube effect involving 2 cubes. A spectator named any one of 6 colours and the second Rubik cube taken out from inside an envelope showed an entire cube with the named colour on all 6 sides.

A befitting and enjoyable last meeting of 2017 with a lot of magic tailored to the Christmas theme.