How was your Christmas? I hope everyone had a blast celebrating the holidays with their family and friends. I, myself, had an awesome Christmas. We had a family reunion of some sort. My cousins from Australia and Canada spent their Christmas with us. Too bad my relatives from Anaheim, San Fo and Las Vegas didn't visit us this Christmas season. But that's okay, at least our other relatives were present. The good company, good food, good conversation and awesome bonding time made our Christmas really meaningful. I really like it when there are a lot of people in our home during the holidays. Family gatherings make me happy.

So during the 24th, we picked up our relatives in Alabang. When we arrived there, my cousins started to hug us and everything. I missed them so much. They gave us our gifts and other pasalubongs. We went straight home after and then we had lunch. After lunch, my cousins and I played Guitar Hero and Mario Kart all afternoon. How awesome is that. Haha. I think it really runs in our family, being Wii slaves and game bums. Haha, kidding. I suddenly got bored playing so I decided to help my mom, grandma, and aunties prepare the food for the Noche Buena. Our family Christmas won't be complete without grandma's Christmas ham cooked in fresh pineapple and other spices and her very famous (and a family favorite!) chocolate souffle. Other Christmas favorites are arroz caldo, shrimp pasta, garlic baguettes, fruit salad, mango and crab salad, caesar salad, (our family sure loves all sorts of salads) chicken inasal, beef stroganoff, and my mom's blueberry cheesecake. It was fun helping them out. I was an official taste tester for that day and boy, it was awesome. I think I gained a few pounds though. Lol.

At around 9PM, my cousins stopped playing Wii and all of us went to the garden to fix the whole place. Then our other relatives came. When our grandpa came, all of us kids started to line up in front of him. All of us were expecting him to give us cash gifts. Hahaha, epic win. He gave all of us cash. I love my grandpa. :) After fixing the place, my brother started to put all the speakers and everything. Music filled the whole garden. My cousins were in party mode. If there was Soberclub, I bet my older cousins would be drinking a lot right now. Anyway, everybody started to have fun as soon as everything was settled. All we did was dance, talk about random things, laugh about the silliest moments we shared and other random stuff. It was really nice to bond with my cousins again since I can only bond with them thrice or 5 times every year.

We had this countdown until the clock strikes 12. It was really funny because when 12:00 is about to come, everybody was shouting the countdown. Everyone was laughing even the drivers and our ates. At 12:00 everybody shouted "Merry Christmas!" with hugs and kisses. We had the gift giving first and then Noche Buena. Good food = WIN. I wish every Christmas was like what we did this year. Family reunion every year. :)

So anyway, I got pretty awesome gifts this year. My parents gave me 2 lenses: a 50mm f/1.4 and a 18-200mm lens. I love my parents. I never expected that they will give my lenses for my dslr. There were many times that I was making parinig to my parents about buying me a new lens. How awesome are they? I also got new clothes and shoes. My favorite has to be the Batman shirt from Topman given by my cousin and a new yellow Vans. I never knew that clothes from Topman can fit me. Nyaha. I totally love the blue beanie my aunt got for me from Aldo. It's so comfy and durable. I also got cash gifts, rolls of film, 2 lomo cameras (Action Sampler and LC-A), random accessories, coloring materials, and others. Thank you to all of the people who gave me such beautiful gifts. :)

The next day, we just went to my grandmother's house in Alabang and spent Christmas Day there. We attended mass during the morning and then we had lunch at my grandma's house. All of us kids went swimming during the afternoon then went on to play Wii, as usual. It was a really fun, awesome, meaningful and a very memorable Christmas. More Christmases like this in the future, yes?

In 2 days, we'll welcome 2010 with a bang. I actually don't feel the new year yet though. But then I am pretty excited since January is the month of my birthday. Lol. And of course, I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of happenings when the new year enters. I don't have a new year's resolution yet but then I'm not so sure if I'll be able to do that resolution if I already have one. I am excited for tomorrow night because of the firecrackers and stuff. Haha. I hope nobody gets hurt from the firecrackers.

This will be my last post for 2009. Thank you for being a part of my 2009. A lot of things happened this year. All of the good stuff, the bad stuff and everything in between. This year has been a rough and playful journey of peaks and valleys. But then the way I see it, I think I've had a lot of fun memories with the very special people around me. I know 2009 is not such a good year for everyone since this year was a year of tragedy, destruction, celebrity deaths and the like. With 2010 fast approaching let's just let go of the past, enjoy the present days and face the future days ahead. I hope 2010 would be an awesome year for all of us. So let's rock 2010, shall we? :)