Holiday Hodgepodge

Merry Christmas everyone! It's been a great season that I have very fortunately gotten to spend with a lot of my family and friends. Of course, Christmas was spent with my family. This was our first Christmas without Nanay so I thought it would be good to celebrate with some food that she would normally prepare when she was younger: molo and lumpiang shanghai with its special sauce. Nanay shared her recipe for these dishes with our family friends who are excellent cooks (in fact, they have a catering business) so I ordered these dishes from them. They told me not to pay for it anymore so I instead gave them some Bake Cheese tarts. I added a few more dishes from House of Lasagna and Dulcelin. I also decided to try their 10" Cacao Con Leche Cake, which is a chiffon and chocolate cake enrobed with Callebaut chocolate ganache, Dulce de Leche and Crispy choco pearls. I really liked this cake!

Cacao Con Leche cake from Dulcelin

I also got to celebrate with many of my colleagues and friends. My ex-team at work had dinner at Caerus in Podium. My current team had lunch at Mary Grace. Our entire department had our Christmas party at The Giving Cafe. My FGTC board game group had a game night at Linden. I also had brunch with some high school friends at SA Southbank at Estancia Mall. That was my first time to eat at SA Southbank and I ordered their Chicken and Waffles. It was really good! 

Chicken and Waffles from SA Southbank at Estancia

Christmas is also the time when many people fly back to Manila to celebrate the holidays with their families. Marj arrived from Australia and I joined her, Karla, and Ian for lunch at Din Tai Fung in Uptown Mall. Ian suggested a coffee place in Mistukoshi but it was full so we instead had our caffeine fix at Bizu. It's been a while since I had dessert at Bizu and one of my favorites - Roca - wasn't available (not sure if it's no longer on the menu) so I opted instead for their Samba cake. It was still good.

Samba solo cake from Bizu

I also met up with my friend Che, who flew in from Singapore in Prologue Greenhills. I had just had their Croque Madame a few weeks ago so this time, I decided to order two items from the menu: Buttermilk Fried Chicken...

Buttermilk Chicken from Prologue

...and Potato Gnocchi. That was a lot of food so I didn't order dessert anymore and I took home half of my chicken dish. It was great catching up with Che it was really great to know what she's been up to since I saw her last. 

Gnocchi from Prologue

I also started watching Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia on Christmas Eve and I've been sort of binging it the last few days. This show has been in My List for a while now and I'm happy that I finally started it because I'm really enjoying it. There are 56 episodes and I might just finish everything in early January. That said, to complete my Trollhunters viewing experience, I want to watch the 3Below: Tales of Arcadia and Wizards: Tales of Arcadia series after that then wrap things up with Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans. Cool. At least I am getting to watch more shows on Netflix now.

For the first time, I purchased Bath and Body Works items online. Ads about the Bath and Body Works Christmas sale kept popping up on my feed and many of their items had a 60% discount, which was huge. Shipping was free for a minimum purchase of P1500. I had been meaning to get some candle so I felt that this was the perfect opportunity to get a few. I ended up buying four, which meant that I qualified free shipping. Cool!

Three-wick candles from Bath and Body Works

Christmas parties weren't the only celebrations I attended. I was asked by Cha (she's technically my aunt but I'm several years older so I never call her tita hahah; instead, she calls me 'kuya') if I could be the ninong of her son Pio and I naturally agreed. For his Christening, I got him a seahorse stuffed toy that glows and plays relaxing lullabies and soothing ocean sounds. Cha told me later on that it became Pio's favorite toy. Cool!

Finally, I got my Spotify Wrapped results. My top song for 2023 was Megalovania by Toby Fox. My top artist was Beyonce. My Spotify profile is Vampire, which means that I like to embrace a little darkness in the music I listen to. Apparently, I listen to emotional, atmospheric music more than most.

My Spotify Wrapped

I took some time off from work to end the year so while the weeks leading up to Christmas were extremely hectic, I'm glad I was able to wind down and chill out in the last few days. I'm also really happy that I got to meet up and spend quality time with my family and friends.