Our Christmas Celebration 2014

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. This year was even more special though because unlike the past 5 years, hubby didn’t have to go to work on Christmas Eve so he got to spend it with us. Yay!

Our Christmases during the past 5 years have been a bit sad because not only did hubby have to go to work on Christmas Eve, our girls also had to spend it with their dad and his family. Although we got to have Christmas dinner together at my in-laws’ place, it still wasn’t the same because we were always in a hurry.

So, this year, I was really excited that we’d be able to spend the entire Christmas Eve together. Plus, my mom, my brother Kim and his girl friend, Paula, plus a friend of theirs, got to spend it with us too at our house.

For the first time in years, I got to host Noche Buena again and because of that I had grand plans for our food and decor. Unfortunately, life happened and I was swamped with article deadlines until the night of December 23. So, hubby and I decided to just order out a few days before December 24 and he just picked up everything before we had our Noche Buena. So convenient!

Anyway, we don’t get the chance to spend a lot of time with my mom and my siblings. So, even if my sister and brother-in-law are in the US, and my youngest brother, his wife and son are in Davao, at least we had our mom and one brother, plus his girl friend with us. We only had a few hours together but it was fun. Just check out the pics!

And of course, a family photo of just the 5 of us.

Now, let me show you what we had for Noche Buena. I didn’t have time to buy any more decorations for our table, aside from the table runner,  so we used whatever we had at home. It was okay though because there really wasn’t any space left for decor anyway.

We wanted to have some of our favorite food for Noche Buena so we had the following: Gryn Wasabi’s Sushi Platter, Gryn Wasabi’s Sashimi Platter, Purefoods Honey Glazed Ham, Lola Idang’s Pancit Canton and Bihon, Pancit Malabon (brought by my brother), and the star of our table, Conti’s Baked Salmon. For dinner, we had Cake2Go’s Quattro Leches cake. #Yummy

Since we are Japanese food lovers, we could not help but order our favorite sashimi and sushi platters. Conti’s Baked Salmon is also a family fave and so as expected, it was the star of our Noche Buena feast. The Quattro Leches cake from Cake2Go was a surprise hit too. It was very light, yet creamy and not too sweet. It was our first time to order at Cake2Go. Hubby actually only ended up there when he couldn’t find any cake he liked in another more popular bake shop. We’ll definitely try more cakes from Cake2Go from now on.

We were so stuffed! There were still a lot of leftover ham, cake and pancit after. We managed to finish the rest of the cake by midnight though. Haha!

After dinner and before we left to attend Christmas mass, we started opening our Christmas gifts. I initially planned on doing this after mass but we thought it would be best to do it while my brother and his girl friend were still around. As usual, opening Christmas gifts was chaos! But I still managed to get a few decent photos. #funtimes

As expected, Ziggy got toys! Here are just a couple of them. I wasn’t able to take photos of the others anymore. The yellow remote control car is from his Lolo Ying (which he got on Christmas day) and the fire truck and rescue helicopter are from hubby and I.

Just look at what Santa got him. Yes, that’s a Transformers scooter right there. I think hubby and I did a pretty good job with that. Haha!

I was so happy I got purple gifts! The Bayo bag was from my girls and the purple Philips earphones from the hubby. They know me so well!

The girls were pretty happy with what they got too.

What really touched me was finding out that  hubby got the girls separate gifts from what I already got them, which were supposedly from both of us already. He brought out his gifts for them in brown paper bags and they turned out to be small black journals. He wrote a special message for them inside. So sweet, right? #bestStepdadever #tearyeyed

It was a simple yet really meaningful Christmas with the people I love the most. In the end, that’s all that matters. I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas with your loved ones too!