24 December Morning

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been busy in the past couple of days. I'm not done with our Christmas Holiday kwento yet. The photos and topics that I am planning to post are actually starting to pile up. So please bear with me. I'll have them up as soon as I can.

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For now, let me share with you how we spent our Christmas Eve morning. Aly took on the role of mini Santa Claus and distributed our gifts to my side of the family.
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Starting with...

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Lolo Bernie and lola Aple.

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Aly's gift for lola Aple.

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Lola, do you like it?

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It's your turn, lolo!

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It's a perfect fit!

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Tito Jof, before you open your gift, picture muna!

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Wow! A gray shirt...diba that's what you wanted?

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Now, it's tito Mick's turn...no, I won't tell you what's inside the bag!

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Come on, open it...

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...I'm sure you will like it...

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...correction...

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...I'm sure you will LOVE it!

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It's a Mick Jagger shirt! Whee!

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What a happy morning!

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I hope you all liked your gifts!

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Ate Gelyn, I also have something for you!

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You can use this when you go to the bank!

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My sister received her gift earlier because she had hospital duty.

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A new knapsack where you can stash all your junk in! Haha!

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Gift-giving is always fun! Seeing the big smiles on their faces makes it all worth it!

Pigeons

From Calavite, we drove to my lolo's house in Tagig to meet with my wedding gown designer. I asked him to make matching dresses for me and Aly and we were supposed to fit them that day.

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As usual, my favorite pamangkins (and Aly's favorite cousins as well), were waiting for us. They were excited to show Aly the pigeons and to teach her how to feed them. This was a new experience for my little girl so I was excited for her as well.

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My favorite kids in the world!

Calavite Kids

We visited my in-laws in Quezon City to deliver our gifts and to spend time with them. The last time we saw each other was during Aly's birthday party/despedida party in March.

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Aly was happy to see her kuyas again (they are actually Richard's cousins, which makes them her titos, but she calls them kuya) and they were happy to see us and the gifts that we brought for them :)

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I love how the kids were so bibo in front of the camera. They kept making silly poses so I just clicked away.

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Aly with Mamita (Richard's dearest tita Tess, who is also our ninang)...

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...with lola Lilia...

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...and lola Jenny.

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Merry Christmas! :)

Christmas

I love Christmas! I love the family get-togethers, the food, the parties, the festive spirit, the decor, Christmas shopping, the gift giving...it's a very happy season that's why it's my favorite holiday of all!
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Christmas in the Valdez household is a big production (for me at least) -- I make the list, I buy the gifts, I wrap them all by myself...by the time the holidays are over, I usually end up exhausted but I wouldn't have it any other way.

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This is how we celebrate Christmas -- Domestic Goddess style!

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Let's start with the Christmas gift list...

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Every year, I have a Christmas notebook. This is where I write our Christmas gift list. It has to be small because it should fit perfectly in my bag so I can bring it with me everytime I go to the mall.

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This one is for 2008.

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I divide the list into two groups: kids and adults, then I divide them further into boys/girls/babies, male/female.

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I also put headings on top of each page i.e. Richard's family, my family, Aly's classmates, Richard's friends, my friends, etc. This way, I can tell if I missed a name and it's easy for me to group the gifts together.

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Now for the gift wrapper. I love wrapping gifts! The packaging and presentation is very important for me so every year I try to come up with a certain motif for our gift wrapper. Last year was hot pink and silver.

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I bought the gift wrapper and ribbon in Chatuchak.

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My original plan was to make a bow, but no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't get it right. So, I decided to just shred the ribbon and curl them.

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It was a bit tedious, but I was happy with how it came out.

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I had a hard time looking for the right gift tags. I found these nice, shiny ones in Paragon (thank you, Jenn for the tip!). I thought these was cardboard, pero sticker pala.

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This is how the tags look with the gift. For the kids, I added stars, while for the adults, I just left them plain.

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I think it took me a total of seven days to wrap all our gifts. Before we left for Manila, I had to make sure that all our gifts for our Bangkok friends were wrapped, ready and delivered. Then, I just wrapped the rest of the gifts when we were in Manila. We brought around ten kilos of cardboard boxes, wrappers and paper bags alone! Hindi pa kasama yung gifts dun.

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It was really tiring, but it was fun. Making other people happy and seeing the smiles on their faces was really worth all the trouble. I am also lucky to have a husband who is very generous. He taught me the true meaning of the old saying that giving truly is better than receiving.