catching up series: christmas is for kids

Merry Christmas, you guys! Hehehe! Kidding! But yeah, it's the Christmas season here on the blog. We're catching up, remember? A little more push and we'll be done with this. 3 more posts and finally it will be 2016 on A Taste of Apple. I promise. You just have to hold on a little bit longer. :)

We spent Christmas eve in our cousin's house because we're used to spending the holidays together. They used to live beside us if I haven't mentioned that before. Their house is literally beside ours with a door pa connecting our living room to theirs. Ganung level ng pagiging beside each other. So up until now, we spend all occasions together. 

As we say, Christmas is for kids. And that sums up ours exactly -- all about the kids! With kids, I mean Faye, Avie and Mithy. I know I post a lot of babies on this blog but just so we're clear, the three of them are the main babes. Mithy being my brother's baby and Faye and Avie, my cousin's wonderful kiddos. Everything has always been about them now. Every time we'd go out, or every time there's an occasion, I'd busy myself with taking their photos. My Facebook timeline is full of their photos, it doesn't seem to be owned by someone who's still single. Hahaha! And of course, Christmas is no exemption. I was occupied by trying to capture them smiling all at the same time. It was impossible, blame it to Avie and Mithy. Of course, Faye was the most cooperative. Funny how she was trying to make the two keep still. Hehe. Ate Faye's struggle is real. :P

Mithy trying to escape. Hahaha!

The kids were showered with gifts while the grown-ups got none. Hahaha! See? I told you, it's all about them now. We saved all their gifts to be opened on Christmas Eve. They even got some more post Christmas. Of course it's only ate Faye who gets to show her appreciation but I hope somehow the younger ones feel the love too. But I guess so. Because they're the sweetest, really. They would just randomly hug or kiss you. Personally, I adore them so much that I run of out of words to express how lovestruck I am. 

We didn't get to take family photos because mom acted up. I got pissed off in return and it was the end of our peaceful Christmas Eve. Hahaha! But seriously, I got pissed off because mom just wouldn't cooperate. Samantalang the next day after every occasion, she would bug me to upload photos and change her Facebook profile picture. So nainis talaga 'ko. Haha! Faye even ended up crying because she's not used to seeing me mad. So that's how we concluded our Christmas Eve. Blame mom! Okay fine. You can blame me too! :P

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catching up series: to remind me of the holidays

The bad: we're still playing catch up here; The good: we've reached as far as the Christmas season. Yahooo! Konting kembot na lang, Borbonita! Hehe! Anyway, nothing much for today. No random thoughts, I promise. Just a ton of photos to remind me of the season that was. 

First off, Christmas! Looking at the photos, we obviously chose green as the color of the night. Wala eh! Gustuhin ko mang isikreto yung theme, parang di kakayanin. Hahaha! Kidding aside, we actually take pride in our family kakornihan. Here's a rundown: Christmas 2010, it was orange; New Year 2011, prints & polka, Christmas 2011, red; New Year 2012, polka dots again {with matching spray paint, spray paint pa!}, didn't have a theme Christmas 2012 but we made up for it New Year 2013 by wearing customized "Incrediborbs" shirts; and then finally Christmas 2013, red again. Haha! Can you see how much we take the holidays seriously? Remind me to suggest blue this coming Christmas, alright?

Going back, the past Christmas was extra special for us 'cause it was Mithril's first. She was barely one month old then. Mom and I were just talking recently about how happier the next holiday season would be because by then Mitmit's probably walking & talking already. Ahh, the joy that baby brings EVERY.SINGLE.DAY! I can't even begin to explain.

meet my family {for the nth time}

my brother, her girlfraan & mithy

my cousin's little family

the difference age can do. haha!

with granny loves

our boys and their tummies :P

New Year 2015 -- our most blah New Year to date. Yags {my cousin} still had his annual "fireworks display", props to his consistency. On the other hand, I once again took the liberty of recording it. I've been doing the same for three straight years already {2013, 2014, 2015} and I was actually wondering why no one else would take the role when I obviously suck at my job. Hahaha! I mean, have you heard me shriek?

our only NYE photo

Anyway, I said blah. Yep, 'cause we almost didn't eat for Media Noche. I was the first one to leave for my room 'cause I wasn't feeling well and come morning, I found out that they slept early too. Boo! We felt like our New Year was a failure so we thought of doing something different on the next days. And with different, I mean playing basagan ng itlog, pinoy henyo, pabitin and palayok in our living room. Hahaha! I have yet to personally know a family as bizarre as us.

I contemplated not writing this in detail but we might look back at this in the future and argue about the results so..

Basagan ng Itlog. Originally, this should be a game for the couples but my niece insisted that we join. Also, we weren't able to convince the old guy aka our father to look silly with us so Dana became his replacement. Long story short, the partners were: mommy & daddy {ate Tin & Yags}, Gigi & Marisse, Mama and Dana, and finally Faye and myself. Guess who won? Yep! Faye and I along with mommy & daddy. Faye kept pressuring me the whole time 'cause apparently the little one isn't so good at accepting loss.

let the basagan ng itlog commence haha!

Pinoy Henyo. By virtue of palabunutan, the partners were: daddy & Faye, Dana & Anit, Marisse & mama, mommy & gigi and finally, papi & I. We were the last pair to be called and everyone burst into laughter. It's just odd for papi to accommodate such silliness so my case seemed like a misfortune. True enough, I wasn't able to guess the word which was alakalakan for crying out loud. Turned out papi thought it was the tagalog word for adam's apple so he kept on touching his throat. Hahaha! Mandadaya pa sana ang mahal kong ama. :P I was confused the whole time 'cause the audience was hinting "paa" but then papi had a world of his own. Needless to say, it was the highlight of the game. Dana and Anit {and also Faye 'cause she said so} emerged as champs.

faye's winning moment x daddy's confusion

Pabitin. Can we not talk about it? Hahaha! I'll let the video below do most of the talking but the highlights were (1) I GOT NOTHING. Can you believe that?! {I bet you can. Haha!} (2) Dana only got one but it was the major prize. Like it was 10,000 pesosss! Kidding! It was only P50. Hahahaha! (3) Mommy was monstrous. Hehe! I mean, mommy got the most number of angpao. (4) And lastly, Faye cried. Hahaha! Humagulgol and bata bilang wala rin syang nakuha. I could have done the same, srsly. :P

Basagan Palayok.  Of course we let Faye try it first and when she wasn't able to break it, we resorted yet again to bunutan to decide our faith. Luck was on Dana, she was the next to try. POK! Basag ang palayok. Hehehe! But knowing her, I'm pretty sure dinaya nya kami. So anyway, after the pot was broken, we killed each other for the moolah that came from it. Again, mommy was unforgiving.

As obvious as it is, Dana and mommy were the biggest winners. We had to pacify the little one though by telling her that everything mommy got was actually hers too. Funny kid! On my end, no one provided me the solace I need. I guess the pabitin tragedy will haunt me forever. Hahaha!

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that time of the year again

..when it's legit to take shitload of photos even when you're at home. :P Okaay, I sounded like a grinch. Pardon me? It's just that, it turned out to be the highlight of our Christmas eve. For one, we didn't have much for Noche Buena 'cause our new baby was brought to the hospital afternoon of twenty four. They were home by night time but mommy {my cousin's wife} no longer got the chance to prepare something up. Next, we skipped, yet again, the traditional exchange gifts. I honestly can't remember the last time we did it and I realized just now that I'm already missing the fun of coming up with code names, wish list, etc. Maybe next year? Lastly, we were full when midnight struck 'cause we gobbled up our dinner later than the usual. I ended up having a bowl of salad and staring at the rest of the food our table offers. Surprisingly, we still got something good despite the unfortunate turn out of events - it is by far our best Christmas, posing posing-wise. And we can't deny the fact that photos are way too important nowadays; blame Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Anyway, photo dump ahead. :)

Santa's overfed elf

the biggest camwhore eveerrr

Yags' growing family ❤

ours ❤

BTS :P hahaha

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nothing like the holidays

Oh it's the love month! I see. How about a blog post about the holidays? Haha! Forgive me guys, you know how I got so preoccupied last month - my resignation, moving out of the condo, meeting friends before I hibernate, and of course, blogging about Boracay! Long list, didn't I tell you? So if you'd allow me, here's a post on.. my holidaaayyss! Yaayyy! So appropriate. :) 

Let's begin with Christmas parties.. I only got to attend two. Three supposedly but at some point I decided not to attend our project's western-themed party. Let's just say I wasn't in the mood to dress up. No, scratch that, I really didn't want to attend. Period.

So I only got to attend our team's party and a simple 'badjao' get together. Our team's Christmas party was held in.. a.. uhmm.. conference roommm! Yeeyy! But at least it was the first time that our team {test team} and the dev team had a joint celebration. It was a little awkward but fun nevertheless. The best part though was that we had mango bravo. Yes, the popular cake from Conti's. I want I want I want!!

mango bravo is love ♥

exchange gifts

dev and ku-yu-ey

I currently do not have photos of our badjao get together but I'll upload some as soon as I get them. It was really simple - chips, exchange gifts, cards, killers {I mean the game}. I wasn't feeling well that night and became really sick afterwards. 

Update 04.03.2013

Because I just had to do what I told my readers {imaginary ones I know, and so?} I'd do. Here are photos of our simple badjao get together. And yeess, another reason why I added them is because I'm purty in them. Harhar.

Ms. Ana's treat that same day

exchange gift photos, just thought of stating the obvious

---

Let's move on to our Christmas at home, shall we? I promise not to bore you with all the details. After all, it was just the traditional Christmas Eve that we always had - dressing up a little, picture taking, some fireworks and a lot of eating. With a lot, I really mean a looottt! I have my big belly to prove that!

outside the house for some fireworks

fooooddd

opening of gifts

before they went to our bellies

mother and daughter

more photos to cap the night

Come New Year, we exerted a little more effort. We had customized shirts, lights and sounds outside, a lot more fireworks, more food I guess. 

lights, sounds and fireworks

lechon and ice cream, ftw

As expected the girls, including the old ones {hi mom!}, were crazy over pictures. See how our faces were fully made up? Mahiya kayo sa foundation at blush on namin. On the other side of the world, which meant just outside our house, the guys were busy setting up for their show. It's been a tradition as well, kuya will have sort of fireworks display while our neighbors watch them for free. I am seriously thinking of asking them viewing fees next time. Kidding. But what do you think? Hehe.

girls will always be girls

as for the guys.. here's what they do

We also had some crazy dances to summon the water serpent. I'm doubting this one though. We might have shooed it away instead.

this is how you summon the water spent

And when it struck midnight, we went outside to watch the fireworks! Kuya did an awesome job with the show while I did a not-so-awesome job taking its video. It was cut in five {or was that six} because I am panicking, I stop it from time to time. I also kept shouting "hindi ko na kaya magvideooo" because I was so scared. Hahaha! Loser!

before the show started

outfit of the night, why not?

Update 07.26.2013

Ha! I can't believe I thought I only cut the videos into five when the truth is I cut them into a whopping number of.. 10 videos!! Just saw my 'o1.o1.2o12 new year' folder again and it made me shake my head of dismay. Anyway, here's half of them. And oh, my voice is annoying. You've been warned.

Then of course, the longest part of the program is eating time! I bet you all agree. We ate until we can no longer move. But remember guys, there's no excuse to gluttony. 

And because we're camera whores.. here's another one! Happy Holidays guuyyss! Hahaha! xP

Now let's loose the extra pounds holiday gave. You with me?

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