Merry Christmas!

Tonight, think about how rich you are:
(1) Your family is priceless,
(2) Your time is gold,
(3) Your health is wealth, and...
(4) Your Savior is the greatest treasure of all!
May you and your family always be rich in things that really count!
- Djoanne's text message

Day 86
25 December 2011


By the time us girls came home from the chapel, we already anticipated the Noche Buena and the annual Christmas family photo shoot. At first I was wondering if we could do the tradition because brother was already asleep, but a little past 11pm, he got up to cook the Pansit Bihon - our Noche Buena meal.

I changed clothes; I decided to wear the summer dress I bought at the tiangge. Since we only have one dish to cook, sis and I just played with the camera while mom took a nap - to ready herself for Christmas Day.


After eating the pansit and the other food given by our neighbors, I set up the camera for the family photo shoot. Again, brother wasn't in the mood - he was busy checking Facebook and waiting for something from his girlfriend - but a little more push, he came out of his cave to pose with us. We took about three pictures before we asked brother to change his shirt because we felt us girls were dressed and well-prepared, while he was wearing the same house clothes he was wearing since he took his shower this morning.

He did change shirts, but he refused to wear something for his feet. Since our camera was programmed to take just one picture after 10 seconds, brother set it up to take 10 pictures after every 3 seconds (first one will be taken 10 seconds after hitting the shutter). It was like having pictures taken in front of the photo booth, but we had to be quick if we want to have nice pictures.

My top 3 pictures for the first batch:


Ten pictures were taken, but only around 5 were okay... simply because the camera was on portrait orientation and there weren't much space for us to move around. The other 5 pictures I plan to delete because it looked as if I was this person trying to fit in the picture and the only part of me visible was my head. Oh gawd!

Second set, I put it back to the landscape orientation, to give us more space, but less head room to work around. My top three favorites:


This batch was much better because mom let down her guard whenever her pictures were taken. It was so great to have pictures taken 3 seconds apart because the scrambling often brings out the crazy side of us... and we even got to let mom do the "rawr!" pose. It became our most favorite picture of the entire shoot.

* Please click any of the pictures, if you want to see the bigger version. *

I slept around 2:30am and woke up around 8am. Brother and I walked to the market to look for Puso ng Saging (the one used in Kare-Kare), but we couldn't find one at the market place outside of the subdivision. Glad brother went with me to Tungko, and happier to have found what I was looking for.

We didn't have guests today, so we had quite a lot of leftovers to eat. One crazy discovery today - I was 12lbs heavier today than I was yesterday. Oh no! Well... no need to worry much, all will be back to normal the next day.

Mr. Pipoy was able to call me today, yey! He wasn't able to subscribe to the UnliCall, so it was late at night when we talked, but hearing his voice made my day. I miss him so, so much! :) Merry Christmas, my love!


What I ate today -

• 12:20am - 2 cups Pansit Bihon (pansit, chicken flakes, carrots, snow peas, cabbage, chicken gizzards), 3 tablespoons Macaroni Salad (macaroni, mayonnaise, chopped apples)
• 8:07am - 1 cup Pansit Bihon
• 12:11pm - 1/2 cup rice, 1/2 cup Vegetable Kare-Kare (puso ng saging, sitaw, pechay, talong, fried tokwa) + 1/8 teaspoon bagoong alamang, thin slice of cake
• 6:44pm - 1/2 cup Aglio Olio spaghetti

Despite the carbs ruling my diet today, I was happy that the Vegetable Kare-Kare turned out good. I guess whenever the cravings for Kare-Kare arise, I can just go for the veggie kind.
No merry-making this Christmas because we didn't attend any party and nobody dropped by to visit us; it basically was like any other weekend, but of course, we didn't forget the reason why we are all celebrating this day. I didn't sabotage my diet and I did get to still walk (even for just 30 minutes), and I am thankful for that.