12 Days of Gratitude – Day 10

Merry Christmas, everyone! 😀

We just had a little food prepared for noche buena since most of us won’t really be eating anyway (and there were only a handful of us at home). My Uncle, siblings and cousins set up a bonfire at the back of the house and had the annual drinking session that lasts until the sun comes up (or until everybody’s too drunk to drink anymore. LOL!). Little Z woke up at around midnight as well and he was able to open (with Mommy’s help) his gifts. 😀 As usual, he was more fond of the wrappers than the actual gift. LOL!

Lunch was spent with the rest of the family – cousins, uncles and aunties came to the house and we had an exchange gift with a game. My brother came up with a theme – something funny. No minimum value, as long as it fits the criteria.

The game goes like this: Participants forms a circle then my aunt reads the story of Mr. Right and Mrs. Left. Everytime the word right is mentioned, the gift goes to the person to your right, and if the word left is mentioned, the gift goes to the person to your left. Since the story is an activity for active listening, your own gift will eventually return to you. So what my aunt does is to either omit the last sentence to a sentence midway the story (I think), so as the gift will end up to a different person.

We have been playing this game for about three years now, I think, and it is becoming a tradition. Hopefully next year, we will have more participants. 😀

We haven’t had any “official” family portraits done this year since we are not complete since some of my cousins and their families have to spend Christmas elsewhere but regardless of the number, we still had fun.

So for today’s gratitude is all about family. I am grateful to be a part of an imperfectly wonderful family. Yes, we are not perfect, we also don’t see each other everyday as some of us live far from each other but we try to schedule the holidays as a sort of reunion to be able to catch up with each others’ lives. We also have our disagreements and arguments, but at the end of the day, we still consider each other family. And that is the most important.

I am thankful to be part of this wonderful family and I am grateful, too, that my son will be growing up knowing that he has everyone’s support just as they have ours. And I don’t think I could ask anything more than that. 🙂