i ate the holidays!

< My sister's back porch. Snow is one of the things I miss living on the west coast. You don't ever get beauty like this in L.A. It was a wondrously white Christmas for us all.

In the 3 weeks I spent in northern Illinois and in Chicago with family and friends, I have to admit that the chosen activity out of it all was eating and drinking. Really, isn't that pretty much the nucleus of most gatherings, socially and symbolically? That eating together gives comfort and the feeling of inclusion. So that part wasn't a problem for me at all.

I had some of the most amazing times of my life from the 17th through the 7th. As I had posted on Twitter, I adore my family, that if I weren't related to them I'd want to be adopted by them. When we all get together it's one of the most chaotic and culturally diverse and existentially kooky events.

^ My middle sister's tree in the living room. Bishop, my oldest nephew's bulldog blend, is sweet, funny, massive, and packs about as much force as a Peterbilt truck. It was hilarious watching Chestnut, my younger niece's tiny teacup chihuahua, following him all around the house.

Several points of activities happen simultaneously. There's often karaoke singing once my brother-in-law cranks up the machine, and it's mostly him and my brothers who perform, all of them completely drunk. The teenage nieces do nearly nothing if not text message their friends the entire evening.

> The social and emotional nucleus of it all: food. I was actually good pacing myself all evening, eating just enough each time to be satisfied for the moment, then coming back for more a bit later.

The older nephews actually cook dishes to bring. All the women converge in the kitchen to cook or heat up the huge amounts of potluck smorgasbord of foods, the cuisines of which often span several ethnicities - American, Filipino, Korean, Turkish, Chinese, and even Italian and Japanese or, this year, Spanish as one of my nephews made paella from scratch (it was tasty, not at all dry like some I've had). I myself made pot roast, though it tasted a bit more like braised beef because I marinated it in red wine for hours. My oldest niece also brought a large strawberry cheesecake, which was companion to my middle sister's pistachio funnel cake.

My karaoke-in-law got hold of a pig's head, which freaked out my Turkish brother-in-law and he refused to go to that end of the dining room table. My Korean sister-in-law (wife of my physicist brother who loves to karaoke when he's drunk) brought some pickled things including the smelly kimchi (not a huge hit with most of us but I like it) and, one of my favourites, dried salted seaweed lightly fried in peanut oil; I totally whored out eating it.

^ What's the holidays without an intense fight of survival against huge numbers of the undead?

Upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms I set up the Xbox 360 and the nieces and nephews and I camped in the dark with my niece in California joining in online to shoot, hit, decapitate, dismember, blow up, and otherwise try to rid a virtual world infected with literally thousands of zombies. It was an intense fight - intensely violent, chaotic, and funny...and intensely tasty, as one of us would occasionally leave the room then come back minutes later with more food to share.

^ The gift exchange happens at midnight, a tradition in my family stemming back from when we were in the Philippines where at that time fireworks were the norm and everyone went to midnight mass at the church wearing their best clothes.

And all this was just Christmas Eve. I still had yet to do New Year's with everyone as well as head into Chicago to meet up with old friends I hadn't seen in a few years.

glad to go, glad to go, glad to go

^ Before and after. It was freezingly rainy when we left LAX that afternoon. At dusk, not long before we descended, I captured the serenity outside.


It's been, what, about 5 days now since I arrived at my sister's here in Belvidere, IL. The flight itself was largely uneventful, even boring. Nanay (mom) kept fidgeting in her seat and it mildly annoyed me. I've never really traveled with her like this so it was new for me. She didn't bring anything to read and didn't want to listen to the in-flight movie (Sisterhood Of The Traveling Skanks II, I think) though she did look at the screen. I mostly listened to my music on my iPhone.


But once my bro-in-law and sister arrived with my niece and nephew to pick us up at O'Hare after we landed I livened up. From then on it's been hilarious, wacky, a bit disorganized, amusing, comforting....and I would never want to trade it all for anything in the world right now.


< This is one huge reason for which I was looking forward to this trip. Looks like a good foot of white to me. Not long after I took this pic out the front door my sister, bro-in-law, niece, and nephew went out to shovel and and machine blow it off the driveway. I just stayed inside with Nanay. I made a pot of French Onion Soup for lunch, excellent for a perfect winter afternoon.

Our family isn't perfect (none are) but we're very close. We bond by yelling at each other to get things done, playing practical jokes, teasing, swearing, gossiping all over the place about in-laws and each other, doing karaoke while drunk til 4 in the morning (mostly my brothers and bro-in-laws), and generally making whores of ourselves eating rich and fattening foods of various cuisines (mostly American, Turkish, Filipino, and maybe Korean). I think if you were a guest at one of our gatherings you'd probably be drunk and joining in karaoke soon enough, or at least on your way there.

In any case, the weather here in northern Illinois is awesomely intense. Just did a check right now: -2 degrees F here in Belvidere. Tomorrow it'll go up to a steamy 5 degrees F. The snow is just beautiful! It stormed like a motherfucker yesterday and everything was practically whited out. I loved it.


> She hates my calling it this, but this is my sister's "Charlie Brown tree". She went all Martha Stewart on it and lavished it with pretty crap and lights. I was only too amused to capture it for digital posterity, if not something to snicker at. Bless my sis.



That's it for now, aside from the pics. I may be able to do some videos to upload but if not I can just do audio intermittently, and from various locations while I'm out and about. I'm here til the 7th next month, and I'm having the time of my life! Merry Christmas indeed!

^ Before and after, family room. I promised myself that if I ever had the chance to own a house a fireplace would be at the top of my list for absolute requirements. There's nothing like it on a frigid winter's evening. Nothing like it.