Christmas with the E's

Since my family moved back to the California in 1991 we have always spent Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Everyone would head to my parents' home in the IE. Initially it started with my family, my aunt and her family, and my grandparents. As more of our family moved to California our celebrations got bigger and bigger. As our celebrations got bigger our Christmas celebration moved from So. Cal to Nor Cal. Since most of the family lived up there it just made more sense. I've never missed out on this gathering, except for last year. I was super excited to be able to see my family this Christmas. I took the day off from work on the 24th and we made our trek to San Francisco.

With Filipinos, Christmas is usually celebrated on the Eve. We call it Noche Buena. My mom and aunt cook up a storm, we basically eat all night, hang out, and then open all our presents at midnight. When we were younger we all took turns playing Santa handing out all the presents but as we all got older the task usually went to the younger cousins. This year my Aunt Melba played Santa.


It's not a Filipino celebration without rice!





My Lola (grandmother).







My cousin's kids James and Jeremy are the cutest!



With so many people and so many presents to hang out, my aunt started flinging presents across the room.

Imagine this multiplied by 10 and this is how full of presents my aunt's living room was.




Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones!