A different and not-so-different Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

Christmas Day was naturally spent with my family. It was also a bit of a unique Christmas celebration. My mom, brother, and I visited my grandmother Nanay where we had Christmas lunch. After lunch, mom and I took Nanay to visit one of her best friends who was in the ICU. We then went to the cemetery to visit Tatay and our other relatives there. After which we headed over to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary church near Times Street for the wake of one of our distant relatives. We got there shortly before 6pm so we heard Christmas mass there. We decided to have dinner in Wee Nam Kee in Ayala Triangle so we could also catch the light show. It was 10:30 PM when we finally got home after a very long but eventful day.

Then again, not everything was all that different. Christmas isn't Christmas without a bit of binging and this year was no exception. I have to admit that I have unfortunately surpassed the amount of food I ate in past Yuletide seasons. I've always wanted to order some good food for Christmas but I never got to plan this well enough in the past and by the time I wanted to place an order somewhere, it was too late. Until now. I called Dulcelin early last week and ordered their US Beef Belly Roast Beef (P1700) and Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese (P1800). I had this during Christmas eve dinner, Noche Buena, and Christmas lunch. And there are still some leftovers. :)

US Beef Belly Roast Beef (P1,700)

Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese (P1,800) 

The weekend leading up to the 25th involved a lot of eating too (of course):

• Friday night: dinner with my colleagues and ex-colleagues where we wined and dined on lechon (wow!), pancit, chicken, fish fillet, and red velvet cake which we enjoyed with Nespresso, courtesy of Raffa and Joh and their Nespresso machine.
• Saturday lunch: I attended (albeit extremely late) the 2nd birthday of Trigo where I had two full servings of spaghetti, chicken, barbecue, mixed vegetables, and a few other items from the buffet.
• Saturday dinner: I met up with my college groupmates for our annual Christmas get-together which we had in CPK in Power Plant mall., followed by dessert and coffee in Brida.
• Sunday lunch: I met up with my college gang ('the clan') for lunch where we had two different pasta dishes, pancit, barbecue, lumpiang ubod, chicken, ham and bread, vegetables, fish, and a caramel cake and ice buko. 

I reckon I must have now piled on at least 5 lbs. Now it's time to redevelop the discipline needed to hit the gym regularly.