High-res version

I love Christmas Day. Sadly it’s over and it passed in the blink of an eye.  There are hundreds of things I love during the holiday season and one of them is not hitting the snooze button. I love it when I can enjoy few days of vacation. The anticipation of the big day has always been a race of thought in trying to recall the things I have completed in my to-do list. Yet, in spite of the hustle bustle, I still managed to enjoy the busyness of the Christmas season because after all, it is the most wonderful time of the year. We started the Christmas week with a handful of parties either with friends or at work.  I love it when my close circle of friends spends our annual Christmas group reunion together. As friends, we all agreed that we don’t need expensive gifts for each other. There are financially challenged families who would benefit the extra dollars we would spend for exchange gifts. So, we decided to reduce our price bracket and share the rest to them.  This year, one of our friends gave the idea of adopting a few families in one of the parishes in our diocese to be their secret Santas in the hope of uplifting the spirit of Christmas to those families.

That is not to say we’ll have a boring Christmas party; I love fun and to add excitement in our get-together, the ladies exchanged scarves and socks for the gents. We were able to enjoy the simple gift giving and a buffet brunch before heading to our Christmas caroling later that afternoon. It was a busy but rewarding day. I love it when mindfulness of the season through the gift of sharing has been accomplished.

Go Warriors!

It was flooding with socks and scarves 🙂

You can never go wrong with a scarf. I never had any specific Christmas scarf and this one will surely be used for many years to come.

Scarf, scarf!

Christmas day is for family; hence, the whole world generally celebrates with a big bang declaring it as an official holiday in most places since time immemorial. It is basically a break to spend time with your loved ones. Every year, my sister-in-law would invite my daughters with their cousins to spend a few days with her the day after Christmas. It has been her traditional annual bonding moments with them.

We have an empty nest for at least a couple of days while kids stay with their aunt. Last night, the hubs and I have had the opportunity to stroll in the mall to look for significant sale events. When we got home, I looked around my daughter’s bedroom and found a lonely Pooh bear with his Grinch hat…alone in the middle of the bed.  I wonder how it feels if we truly have an empty nest when kids have gone out to college. It must be really interesting.

Lonely Winnie the Pooh

I seldom go to my girls’ room and it made me smile when I saw this frame on the wall. It’s funny because I just heard this quote from a teen star in the TV show a few days ago, “A girl should be two things: Classy and fabulous” but then I couldn’t recall why it was familiar. Now I know why… Coco Chanel’s famous line is hanging on my daughter’s wall. I remember shopping in one of the thrift stores with my daughter over a year ago when she saw this frame and wouldn’t leave the store until I purchase it for her…and there it is in its glory 🙂

Classy and Fabulous

In all things Christmas, I get really excited when I receive Christmas cards by mail. I can feel the effort and the love of the person who sent it, I guess because I love doing it too. Every year, I try to send greeting cards to friends and families in time for the holiday, a tradition that I want to pass on to my daughters. I admit for being guilty of procrastination but I love it when my girls gather around the table with me and take responsibility as to who would take care of writing to specific family and friends. It’s not easy to write and think of a holiday cheer, it needs a strategy. However, amid the Christmas music, to-do list that needs to be crossed out, and other things that occupy me, it is often a challenge to cherish the cards I received. I won’t deny that I often skim quickly and look who it’s from and set them aside. But, it’s very important to choose a day to gather them all and read again.

Christmas Greeting Cards

“May the spirit of Christmas guide your heart just as the wise men were guided by the star”

A Greeting from a friend

I like to re-read them over a cup of hot chocolate in front of the fireplace. Tranquility is the key to absorb the words of inspiration and encouragement from these greeting cards when all is calm and silent.  The old fashion hand-writings and smiley faces written on the card make the moment more nostalgic. Such moment is part of the essence of Christmas where love abounds. How do you manage reading your Christmas cards from friends and family?