Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Christmas Get-togethers

December proved yet again to be an incredibly packed month, what with all the Christmas get-togethers and reunions filling up my calendar. It started in the first week of December, when my ex-colleagues from my first job - Jette, Chari, Bett and Pikes, and Mitch - met for dinner at Fat Fook in Megamall. Jette was also celebrating her birthday so she treated us to coffee and dessert at Cafe France. The next gathering was more than a week later, when I joined my last team from my previous job for dinner at TGI Friday's. We had a white elephant exchange gift and it was really great catching up with everyone, a lot of whom I hadn't seen in almost two years. A couple of days after that, I joined the management team of our center of expertise for dinner in Anna Mae's condo in Taguig. We also had a simpler white elephant exchange gift and I ended up with a box of fancy M&S chocolates. The day after, one of my boardgaming groups which we call FGTC met up for our final game night of the year. Shortly before Christmas, I had dinner at Providore with my friends from my second company. I had been to Providore before but only for coffee and dessert. I got to try their main courses for the first time and I have to say, the food here is really good. I ordered their Grilled Beef Belly and it was absolutely delicious. I would absolutely love to have it again. (I also got to try their mac and cheese since Sophia couldn't eat all of it and it was good too!)

Grilled Beef Belly from Providore in SM Aura

I also had a handful of more intimate get-togethers. First, I got to hang out with Marco for the first time in months. His wife Cha joined and I hadn't seen here since their wedding a few years ago. I also got to meet their daughter Leica. I also had dinner with AJ and Tin, both of whom I was seeing for the first time since AJ's wedding a few months ago. I had lunch with Karen and Pia and I got to have a quick chat with Elle who was meeting with her friends for lunch in the same restaurant. I also had dinner with Zaza in Green Pastures, which was a good option since I had already been eating too much and too unhealthily this last month.

Finally, after Christmas, I met up with some friends in Eastwood Mall where we had dinner in Cyma. What's interesting is that in just a little more than a week, I ended up eating in Cyma twice (well, sort of). My dinner with AJ and Tin was in Souv in BGC, and when I got there, I realized it was Souv by Cyma. Somehow, I ended up ordering the same dish both times - Moussaka. However, in Cyma in Eastwood, I actually ordered Moussaka with a side of vegetarian moussaka. Talk about a moussaka overload LOL.

Moussaka from Cyma

Of course, there were a couple of office Christmas parties too. The first one was the full company Christmas party. Unfortunately, I was feelig a bit sick that night so I couldn't stay all the way through until the end. Too bad because we had an MTV-themed interdepartment contest and I wanted to see all the videos. The week after, we had our department Christmas party where I won a Cross pen during the raffle. Cool!

I did miss one get-together: a major reunion of my 2nd company. People from four decades showed up and I was really looking forward to it but I got really sick that day and I couldn't join. Too bad.

I gotta say that I feel quite tired from all the social gatherings this month. I'm even more tired from it than from work LOL. Still, it's a good kind of tired as I am tremendously thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life.

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