Posts made in December 25th, 2008

The (Im)Perfect Christmas

Posted by Michelle on Dec 25, 2008 in Family, Life | 1 comment

• Our tree is artificial. And lopsided. I never did get to put on the start topper or buy the tree skirt.
• The garland only went up one banister… and not even all the way.
• Our wreath blocked the peep hole on the front door.
• I never did get around to clearing the mantle and hanging stockings.
• My Christmas cards still haven’t come in. (WTF, Shutterfly?!)
• There were no presents for anyone under the tree but The Little Empress.

And yet… this was probably the most perfect Christmas our little family has had. Christmas isn’t about decorations or parties. It is about family and this year helped me to understand and appreciate that in a way that I had not yet fully grasped.

For Christmas Eve dinner, we had a ton of food: roasted prime rib with horseradish sauce, potatoes, roasted french green beans and stuffed mushrooms; palabok, pancit bihon, dinuguan (… I don’t know why), lechon kawali; and a ton of sweets. Our refrigerator and kitchen table are still groaning with the weight of Christmas Eve leftovers.

The Hubster ™ set aside his Grinch side and was pleasant company for most of the evening. To my surprise, he dug around in the mess that is our library and found a Christmas CD that he’d bought a long time ago so we had Christmas music in the background to set the mood for dinner. AWESOME!!

Since The Little Empress is still too young to really appreciate the giddy anticipation of Christmas morning, we opened presents on Christmas Eve, with Lolo and Lola present to watch. It was wonderul seeing how happy my parents were to watch their grandchild open her gifts. My only regret is that my in-laws could not make it out for the holiday to participate.

As I was forewarned by other mamas, The Little Empress was far more interested in the wrapping paper than she was her actual gifts. I was careful to mandate that any gifts that TLE received was to be either a book or educational. My parents gifted her with a few toys including a Leap Frog Little Leaps learing center as well as a little play zoo. She also received some nice board books and more educational materials.

Since we celebrated Christmas Eve, Christmas Day was a low-key, do nothing sort of day. We started off with a big breakfast of eggs, bacon and my first attempt at a dutch baby which didn’t turn out quite as I’d hoped. Lunch and dinner was comprised of holiday leftovers including leftover lechon kawali which is basically deep fried, fatty pork. Sinful and delicious, I can’t help but feel like a totally huge, fat slob for eating it not just at one meal but three. I’ve also decided that one full day of prime rib leftovers is quite enough; there’s still a good 2lbs of meat leftover and I’m assuming that will be making an appearance in leftover fried rice for the next few days.

I’m somewhat notorious amongst my movie loving friends for having a rather dismal knowledge of movies prior to 1996. I never got to go to the movies while I was a kid and though my dad frequently rented movies for himself, he never let me or my sister rent them. And on the occasions that he did rent movies, we were often told to close our eyes during kissing scenes. Unlike me, my sister made it a point to go out and get herself caught up on all that wonderful pop culture stuff we missed out on as kids. Since she’s staying with us for her winter break, she brought a selection of DVDs to catch me up because she was horrified that I could call myself a geek without having watched some of the 1980s classics. So after breakfast, we sat down for an 80s movie marathon. We watched:

• Pretty In Pink
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High
• Sixteen Candles
• Animal House (not 80s but silly and stupid)

Still on the “to watch” list are Weird Science and The Breakfast Club but since my sister has retired to “take a nap” at 8:00PM, I think I’m just going to let her sleep and continue on the 80s marathon later this week. We’ve also got DVD sets of The Greatest American Hero and Sledgehammer and we found out that Macguyver is available on Hulu. Yep, we’ve still got PLENTY of stuff to watch.

For now, though, the marathon is over and I’m just typing away as TLE nurses herself to sleep on my lap. I hope everyone’s Christmas went well!