2016 Christmas Celebrations are made special because of FAMILY!

25 December 2016

For a while, the spirit of Christmas waned in our household because, really, the whole of 2016 has been more of "downs" than "ups".  But, it's not in our nature to let that get us down for a long time so we rallied and with the help of Family and Framily (Friends who are Family), Christmas was a blast!

It's not about the gifts - they're very much appreciated but it's really the thought that counts.  It's the presence, and sadly, the absence of the important people in our lives that make celebrating Christmas all the more worthwhile.



As has been our tradition for the past years, we spent Christmas Eve with the Aguilos-Escalante clan.  We originally didn't plan on going because, this may sound silly, but we weren't able to offer gifts to everyone at this time because of our current financial situation.  It took a phone call from Kalila to convince us to be with family and that, yes, it's not about the gifts, it's about family.  Embarrassed at first, we got over it because of the warmth and the companionship that we received.

We shared in the dinner and brought some wine.  Dylan loved the lechon :)

Here, everyone displayed the artwork that Orvin graciously gifted.  These were his personal creations, his masterpieces. Yay! Great work!! :)

After eating, the kids gravitated towards their peers - Dylan with Luna and Tala and Dana with Tamara.

We stayed and chatted with long-time friends and celebrated the good news of Josie's pregnancy :)

After the gift-giving, the family posed for the annual family photos :)

On Christmas morning, everyone got excited to open their gifts.  Dana was ecstatic with her books while Dylan got a guitar and a drum set :)

He got pranked with this book which I initially told him belonged to someone else! haha

 It always puts a smile on their faces when they receive gifts related to their arts and crafts :)

They even received these chocolate bars from our neighborhood store. :) We're loyal customers and this is our reward :)

Lunch time, the house was filled to the brim with my family.  This was a rare gathering because usually we had places to go during the holidays but this time, we're all here, except for my brother who's in the States.  We miss him though.  We had pasta, lechon (roasted cow), ice cream, ham sandwiches and fruits.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!! Just like we did :)