Happy Chinese New Year!
This photo was taken the first time my family visited Beijing in 2005, a year before we would move over from LA. I rediscovered this photo when I visited home over the winter holidays. We must have had the photo printed on silk years ago, and my mom unearthed it recently and got it framed. I was charmed by the photo, if I do say so myself, and asked my dad if he could try finding the digital copy for me, which he did.
Watching Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn in bed. Mom joining me halfway through. Danny coming in a little later, Lego Pokemon in hand, yet to be assembled. Dad waiting until exactly midnight to break out the grape cider. “It’s our champagne.” Missing midnight by exactly two minutes because we were watching Funny Face. Ken gaming in the room next door. Watching Funny Face again because Mom missed the beginning. Toasting bagels at 2AM because Danny got hungry. Finally tucking into bed for the first sleep of the year.
I started my Christmas shopping the weekend before Thanksgiving when the Christmas Village and Dilworth Park Holiday Market in Philly opened. Admittedly, I ended up buying more things for myself than for other people that first weekend. But no worries, I still had plenty of time left in the holidays to do my shopping. The Friday after Thanksgiving, I checked out the Bryant Park Holiday Market in NYC, and when I got back to Philly the next day, I kept the momentum going in Old City for Small Business Saturday. Pretty much all my holiday shopping was done over those two weekends, and I’ve been dying to share what I bought ever since, but I held off until now because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for my friends receiving the gifts. Although the timing of this post is too late to inspire your own holiday shopping, you can keep these businesses in mind for birthdays or other special occasions!
I wondered what anyone could do on the ice for so long. Wouldn’t it get boring skating in circles? Alas, I soon discovered that we were all too busy fighting for survival to get bored. Everyone was either struggling or with someone who was struggling. Which one was I? The one struggling ꒰๑•̥﹏•̥๑꒱
Christmas day is good and all, but what I really love is looking forward to Christmas. I’ve been anticipating Christmas since September, so I thought at first to share a traditional holiday bucket list. Putting together my holiday bucket list, I was pretty hyped. But looking back on the predictable list of holiday markets I wanted to shop at, desserts I wanted to bake, and films I wanted to watch was uninspiring. Plus, I had already made my way through a good portion of those activities on my list, and was ready to charge full steam ahead to make it through the rest of my bucket list in record time, leaving me more time to write about them for the blog and tackle the daunting challenge of Blogmas. But that’s not what holiday bucket lists are about. They’re not assignments to tick off; they’re about creating magical holiday experiences. So here are three magical holiday moments I’m speaking into existence.
So much has changed since graduation. Everyone I’ve survived college with is off on their next adventure. There wasn’t the rush of everyone leaving campus together, riding the same train to the airport or the bus to NYC. Some people even had to go back to work on Friday, though most took out a vacation day anyway. As for me? I was blessed to celebrate Thanksgiving the same way I did the last three years: with Georgina’s family in NYC. Not only do I still live in Philly, which is close enough to visit NYC for a long weekend or day trip, but also Georgina and I are currently roomies. There was no way she’d let me spend Thanksgiving alone in Philly!