Merry Christmas

Or in tagalog (filipino), it would be, "Maligayang Pasko!"  I had a lot of fun spending time with my family and friends this year.  Christmas is ultimately the best time of the year.  I am very lucky with a healthy relationship with my great hubby, family that lives in town, good friends, a roof under my head, continuing college education, and a job that pays pretty well.  God has blessed me with many great things and I cannot describe how grateful I am.

Nor, my brother, got a snuggie and was proud.

This year was a little different, being that Grandma wasn't here for Christmas.  She moved to the Philippines back in September for good.  My family and I gathered and ate yummy filipino food, played catch phrase, and just enjoyed each other.  Being that Grandma wasn't here, which we usually spend Christmas eve at her place, we decided to have everyone come over to our little place.  It was a little crowded, but it was still fun.  Traditionally in our family, we all eat and stay up on Christmas Eve until midnight to open presents.  This year I talked the family into opening the presents at 9pm, so we can all sleep early.  Hopefully we can just keep this tradition up for the rest of the Christmases.  We also did a different thing where the adults did a Chinese Gift Exchange.  I was the only one that stole a gift, and I stole glass tupperware from my Aunt.  Everyone else seemed satisfied with their gift from the exchange.  It was great.  Then we watched all of the kids open up their gifts and they were happy to receive games, clothes, and toys.  Every year the kids get spoiled, mostly because they get so many gifts from the so many family members.  Watching the kids open presents reminded me of when I was a child, with how many gifts I used to get.  Now that I am an adult the only person that spoils me is my husband, which is awesome!  I better be good forever so I can get good gifts, wink wink.

Mom during the Chinese Gift Exchange

My brothers, hubby & I

The Fam that came over

Joy

Everyone probably left at around 10pm.  Cory and I were spent, so we went right to bed.  Hopefully next Christmas, Cory and I will have a nice house to hold my family in.  They don't have a big place either, so at least one of us should.  Although, first I must pray that Cory gets the job on base he has been trying to get.  Anyways, the next day, on Christmas morning, we woke up by his phone going off.  His mom texted us "Merry Christmas" and it was about 7:30AM.  We have been sleeping in all break, so that was a wee bit early for us.  It didn't matter, we were excited to open up our presents that we got for each other.  So, we got up and we ate some Captain Crunch cereal together, then we dove into present opening.  Gotta feed the machine first, ya know.

Hmmm, what can this be?

I am just going to get down to it and share what I got, and what Cory got this year.

Gly:
- snowboard, bindings, and boots
- two pairs of colorful liner gloves
- colorful scarf
- a new hairbrush
- a nice watch
- a Coach swing pack
- a purple silk robe
- the book, The Power by Rhonda Byrnes
- a star necklace
- Victoria Secret perfume: Pure Seduction

Cory:
- An Affliction zip up reversible hoodie
- North Face hoodie
- Head Scratcher
- New wallet
- UnderArmour beanie
- A robot coin collector that counts your coins
- A blue squishy bean bag pillow
- snow board socks
- $100 worth of supplements from our credit card

The Gift Card I made for Cory

The rest of the day we just vegged out.  We later went to Walgreens to pick up some stuff.  I made some baked beans with pineapple to bring to a Christmas Dinner.  Our friends, the Taylors (Ruthie and Justin) invited us to join them for dinner.  The Leopolds (Justine and Rob), their baby boy, Meredith and Bundy also joined us.  There was so much food that Ruthie cooked.  We had some delicious chicken pesto pasta, salad, halibut, brushetta, baked beans, and nacho dip.  Yummy!  The girls ate the table to catch up in life.  I haven't seen them for awhile, so it was really nice to see them.  Life has been way busy as you know.  The boys ate in front of the TV watching an NBA game.  After dinner we tried out their PS3 move playing tennis and volleyball.  It was pretty neat and entertaining.  Then we all did a Chinese Gift Exchange.  Cory and I ended up with a bag of beef jerky and a gift card to Wendys.  We were all getting pretty excited, so we decided to play catch phrase.  Ladies vs Men.  We played for 4 rounds, which took up almost 2 hours.  We took breaks between rounds, of course.  The men were getting pretty competitive and just wanted to keep playing until they at least won one round.  So the final scores were ladies 3 and men 1.  Everyone started leaving at around 11pm.  Not only did get get to come home with gifts, but we got take halibut and chicken pesto pasta leftover with us.  Thanks Ruthie!  We were very glad we went because we had a successful fun night.

Top:  Me, Cory, Leopold, Bundy, Meredith, Taylor
Bottom:  Justine, Ruthie and Jude

That about sums up our Christmas this year.  Yay for family and friends.

Love,

Gly