Here's my favorite gift for the past 4 years - my box of gift cards. I think I mentioned it on my blog last year but as a refresher, 4 years ago my mom gave me a box filled with 12 gift cards individually wrapped in tissue paper in a fabric sleeve for each month of the upcoming year so I get to open one on the first of each month. Its always so much fun over the course of the year to see what the gift cards or gift certificates are. My mom gets pretty creative and some are from restaurants or stores only found in the South Bay. In case you're wondering, January 2009 was for Target.
Christmas Eve I wore a new magenta hooded button up v-neck sweater that I bought recently from the Nordstrom Rack. My mom commented all day that she loved the sweater - style and color. I thought she was just being affirming. Christmas morning, I opened one of my presents and there was the SAME sweater. So of course I had to put my sweater on just for a picture.
My grandfather recently moved to a Board & Care home. In the past, I would pick him up and bring him to our extended family holiday celebrations. At Thanksgiving, it became apparent that bringing him was challenging (he's blind) and logistically difficult and it would be better for the family to visit him over the course of the Christmas week. I rallied my cousins, all of his grandchildren, together to visit him on Christmas. We spent several hours hanging out with him and joined in for a bit of singing when the Christmas carolers came to sing Christian Christmas songs/hymns. This was my BEST Christmas - those two and a half hours were so special and memorable.
This is Linda, my grandfather's caregiver. She and her husband own, live and manage the board & care home where my grandfather lives. She has truly been a blessing to my grandfather and to the entire family. She has a true gift for caregiving. Given my life experiences over the past year I am extremely appreciative for the love, care and comfort that she provides him.
And now we get to the Fong (my mom's maiden name) family extravaganza. If you read the blog last year, there was a carousel. Thanksgivings and Christmases are always at my grandfather's house that is now owned by one of my aunts. My grandfather helped design this house for my grandmother, who passed away years ago, and their 9 children (although I think my mom was already off at college at that point). Its in the Oakland Skyline Hills. With 9 kids, spouses and 10 grandkids, it makes for some big family gatherings best shown by the stockings. Couples have to share because there isn't enough room otherwise.
My Uncle David does all the decorating at the house every Christmas for the family get together. As mentioned above last year there was a pretty large carousel. This year he scrounged up all of the 5000 family photos from way back when (before my grandparents were married) to present day and projected them onto a old time movie theater backdrop. We also each got a Christmas tree (see the wall in the picture below) with pictures through the years.
The kids table that all the grandchildren have to sit at. I think I'll always be here even as the oldest grandkid. Look at all the pictures.
More pictures...
Even pictures in the bathroom...
This was a first - for some reason we decided to do hair. We straightened my hair - looked a little straighter and shinier and my littlest cousin's hair and curled my cousin, Jennifer's, hair (it looked great if I can say so myself).
My Uncle David always has a game for us to play each year. This year we each got a paper with 7 pictures (mostly old pictures) on it and we had to put them in chronological order.
We were allowed to help each other (I wasn't cheating) because it was really hard.
Then for the first time, the siblings (aunties and uncles) had a game - to figure out the years that my grandfather, grandmother, grandfather's second wife and all the kids were born and the president that was in office at that time. They were allowed to help each other but in their case it didn't really help.
Family photo - only missing one uncle and his family of five - and my grandfather because I had already taken him back to his home and Nellie, his second wife.
Another tradition - my Auntie Jann gives us a puzzle each year that we have to solve to get the $. Last year we had to do sudoku puzzles to get a combination to open a bag. One year we had a tub of keys and had to find the individual key that opened our box. This year we got advent calendars and the money was hidden in one of the days. I loved mine, it was a church.
My mom, dad and I.
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as we celebrated the birth of Christ, our Savior, and had the opportunity to spend some time with family and friends.
