Arellano Christmas Party

It has been a tradition in my mother's side of the family to celebrate the birth of the Lord on its eve. Everyone of my mother's siblings and their family (my cousins) gather at one of our Aunt's home to be together and be merry. We always start with a prayer of thanksgiving for the food we will all share. Eating time is always, always a blast since we are a family who loves food and most especially loves to eat. Anyone could see it in our sizes haha! After dinner we gather up and have some games both for adults and children as well. And when everyone is perspiring, tired and hungry again...we gather up for more desserts! Then an hour before midnight we get all our gifts and start with gift giving. By midnight we all eat the family's tradition food, what we all call "lelot" (arroz caldo or chicken rice soup). It has been a family tradition passed from our grandparents to our parents and now to us. By 1am on Christmas day we again gather to start enjoying the booze each of us brought.

Here are some pictures of my family's Christmas Party.

(L to R): my cousin Irene, me, my niece Yanna, cousin Pia, niece Randi and my Auntie Fe
with my cousin Meg


Here with my nephew Enzo ( I just gave him a 50 peso bill). For 3 years now I have been assigned to be the Santa Clause of my big family. Nobody would take on the task of being the host, game master and Santa Clause....so when one of my cousins volunteered me for the job, I head on took it and its been now a tradition that I do my job during our party. its not really a job right?! Its for the love of family and merry making.

As the family's Santa, I have the priviledge of collecting funds from my Mom and Aunts to give away to the children in the family. Even grown up nephews fall in line to receive money! haha!

This year we started with the monito/monita theme for gift giving. I received a brown bag and gave away a set of scented soaps to my Tita Baby. Everyone received well thought of gifts and gave beautiful one too.

Next year will be another Christmas blast with lots of cousins, food, gifts, booze and all those catching up! Oh and maybe next year, I'll be able to get myself a santa costume ;)