Christmas Party 2008

Watching the Laker game


BBQing in the rain


White Elephant


Family Photo

It was a typical Christmas party for our family. We started by watching the Lakers beat the Celtics. Then we watched Eight Below and challenged ourselves to fight the tears. Meanwhile, my mom and Tito Melvin barbecued in the rain, Tito Melvin in his raincoat, and my mom in her rain boots. RJ stealthily collected more chocolate chip cookie cheesecake cups to satisfy his sweet tooth.

We enjoyed a bountiful dinner by a roaring fire that burned Grandma Perla's scarf, sending Tita Susan into a deafening burst of laughter. Grandma's perfectly fine; her scarf, however, will never be the same.

This year's White Elephant was fun because it seems our group is slowly growing. Jessica, Mark, and Andrew joined in the gift-stealing--I hope they didn't think we were too weird. All of the parents waited impatiently as we prolonged the game with more and more thievery.

As soon as the game ended we were all rushed to pack up our gifts and advised to force ourselves to urinate to prepare for the ride home.

Some of us stayed behind to reminisce our unusual childhood pastimes--preparing garden berry soup, various animal rescues with craftily crocheted harnesses, sacrificing new white shoes to reunite a lone duckling with his family, and other interactions with the animal world that, in retrospect, were somewhat cruel.

When Andrew and I finally left, we had to scrape the ice off his windshield before we could get on the road. Ice on windshields in sunny Southern California, who would've thought.

It was a Merry Christmas indeed.