Just another Christmas..

Just “another” Christmas day over…gaya pa rin ng Pasko last year…and the past 9 years…err, except Pasko 2005 when we spent the holidays in the Philippines…

This year is still no different….another Christmas away from our family and relatives…gaya ng marami pang iba na kagaya naming nasa malayong lugar...add to that the fact that we are living in the Middle East…where you can only feel the Christmas spirit inside some expat-friendly department stores.

But still..Christmas is Christmas…wherever we may be, there will always be one good reason to celebrate …because today is the day our Lord was born, after all..

So how did we celebrate and make this day special in our own way?

Christmas Eve…just a dinner with my two lovely princesses—my wife and my daughter..we don’t actually plan what to have for Noche Buena or any other day for that matter…its more of a mix and match of what we feel like eating or what is available…But this time, I wanted to try something new….so I prepared carbonara…my first time to cook that and in fairness it was sooo good!(ehem di naman ako nagyabang dun noh?)

 

For desert, I baked some brownie fudge…and my wife made macaroni salad…

And that was it, a simple family dinner…yet, perfect as can be….

Christmas Day…after sending/receiving messages and calling home to the Philippines… we went to church at around 10 am and heard mass..

Afterwards, we went on to a department store to buy Cianna a present…we noticed she’s been spending a lot of time infront of her TV watching endless Barney and other children dvd’s…yea, somehow they can be helpful to some degree…but this time we wanted to give her something educational and brain-stimulating….

and so we got her her first ART SET…lots of paints, crayons, color pens, the works…well I guess I better prepare myself and expect a lot of mess in the house from now on….

Lunchtime is authentic pinoy…kare-kare!…boiled oxtail with  pechay, eggplant and sitaw…and of course with its ubiquitous partner, alamang…whew it was really a sumptuous one!!.....a very happy meal indeed..

It was still a special day..a day spent at home, with family…observing and celebrating in our own way…being thankful for the blessings of the day, being content with what we have and appreciating the smaller things…sabi nga, its not what you have..but how you celebrate it..

well, it is still Christmas after all…