This past Christmas & New Years break was full of family time, fun and relaxation. We kept the same traditions of spending Christmas with both sides of our family. As always, Christmas Eve was celebrated in San Diego with the Buenaventura's while Christmas Day was spent in Delano, CA with the Sison's. For the Eve of Christmas, we spent the evening at Jay, Joanna, Jalen & Jolene's house. That evening was spent hanging out, playing video games, eating lots of food and of course, opening presents. Each of the adults in the family participated in a Secret Santa gift exchange in which each participant spent a minimum of $50 on their perspective draw. The kids, Derek, Jalen & Jolene all got hooked up with presents from the family. Erica and I got gift cards and cash, while Derek ended up with a train set, some cash, gift cards, a dancing Mickey Mouse plush toy, a mini helicopter, clothes and a toy car. As a Buenaventura tradition, we dressed up in a single color. This year it was yellow. In the previous years it was powdered blue, green and red.
The following morning on Christmas Day, we took a trip to Delano and spent the weekend with the Sisons (minus Elaine, Carlito, Xavier, Zachary & Ysabelle. They were in the Philippines celebrating Christmas in the Motherland). We ate more food, opened presents and hung out with the family. We also did a gift exchange Secret Santa as well. The minimum for this one was $100 and of course the kids were except and got individual presents as well. Erica drew Dad while I drew Mom. Dad got a $100 American Express gift card and I got Mom a Barnes & Noble Nook. I was picked by Carlito, while Erica was picked by Elaine. Erica got a cool camera lens for our camera and I scored an XBOX 360 Kinect. Derek received a book shelf, clothes, a stuffed animal, cash and a pillow pet.
As soon as we got home from Delano, it was our turn to exchange gifts within our own household, S-B style. This year, I hooked up Erica with Juice Plus and she hooked me up with a Chargers Authentic Antonio Gates White jersey. We contributed to Mom & Dad's gift to Derek, a table top train set, and also bought a few Thomas The Train cars to go with his train.
This New Year's celebration was the first time Derek was awake for the majority of the evening. He almost made it to midnight but he fell asleep 10 minutes before. We did kick off the evening with a hunt for cake donuts. We couldn't find any of these particular donuts within proximity from our house so we drove to National City to finally pick up the last two pieces of cake donuts along with some glaze donuts at Winchell's and Yum Yum Donuts. For dinner, we had some Super Sergio's carne asada fries and roll tacos. Derek enjoyed the fries and even at a roll taco. We gave him a few bites of a glaze donut and had an immediate sugar rush. I guess that explained why he was up for a while. We planned ahead for Derek to celebrate New Year's by watching the East Coast telecast of the New Year's celebration at Times Square New York. Once it was 9PM Pacific Time, Derek got his taste of Happy New Year's and jump around and celebrated. We were hoping for him to stay up at midnight for the West Coast New Year's Celebration but as I mentioned earlier, he was out right before. Erica and I stayed up for a bit and tossed money all over our house for good luck and an hour later, we called it a night.
Overall, we had an fun Christmas and New Years Holiday. We were even productive on several errands, including getting our garbage disposal fixed, getting our house cleaned and repairing our Dyson. It was great to be off of work and spend a bunch of family time. Happy New Year Ya'lls!
