It's almost Christmas

And nothing like listening to Christmas songs while wrapping Christmas gifts can make you feel the spirit of the season.

Of ropes and knots

It's been a roller coaster October and November so far.  I feel like I've been walking on the tight rope - with work, last week's vacation and the house titling stuff.  Before heading off to vacation, there were too many pending issues at work, with a pending trip approval hovering.  I even had to snuck a couple of work hours during vacation as my boss required me.  Good thing, I was able to get positive responses from my contacts.

These days, my insides feel like they're all tide up in knots. Although there are happy and positive updates, there are still a lot of knots to untangle.  For work, I still have to make 10 million calls tomorrow and the next few days, send out the surveys, organize the global Press Release schedule, attend to what the boss will require.  Make another trip to the Registry of Deeds on Thursday.  Start packing our stuff for the BIG move.  Orgazine our finances. Plan for the trip on the last week of November.  And I haven't even started on the Christmas shopping yet!  No Christmas tree yet pending the move.  I only decided to bring out the parol for now.

Thank God there are happy moments tucked in between the To Do's.  Time with my hubby and son.  Chats with family and friends.  Little happy things to make me hang on to the rope and let go of the knots.

What a December!

The little one by my cousin's huge Christmas tree

To say that I had a hectic last month of the year is an understatement. December started with the visit of my parents in our home. Had to coordinate airport pick-up with less than 2 hours intervals, my Dad came from Qatar and my Mom from Cagayan de Oro. It would have been easy, but they both came on our coding day. But I survived that and then had to hop on a plane myself to attend a really busy work week in HK. This one I barely survived. I had thought that my last business trip was busy, the December trip though, by far is the busiest on record. I was dizzy most of the time, maybe because of the stress… and it was the first time I met my boss’ boss’ boss. We spoke on the phone all the time before, but first time face to face meetings are still unnerving.

We had initially planned for the hubs and our little one to follow, good thing they didn’t coz all I did after work was sleep. My mom still went with me to HK so we stayed over the weekend to go to Macau. Macau was wonderful at night and for short trips. I can’t imagine staying longer than 3 days there… It felt more like home since Filipinos were everywhere. Literally! We saw about 3 Filipino stores on one street.

When I got back, it was all work again and parties everywhere. I missed my hub’s company party, which was a treat last year. I was able to attend our company’s party, a surprisingly nice one too. Then I attended parties are friends’ and hub’s friends and my son’s school party. It was all a slur of parties for 2 weeks until we all hopped on the plane on the 23rd to go home to Cagayan de Oro.

Arriving in Cagayan meant parties still. Parties with my Mom’s family, then my Dad’s, then of course spending time with the hub’s family and relatives. I only was able to meet-up with one friend… Cagayan meant spending time with family. The little one had a blast reacquainting with cousins and playing with them. He can never forget how much fun he had and what they did. It was a joy to see him enjoy being surrounded by cousins, he doesn’t have cousins here in Manila.

A wonderful, busy and stressful December. Good thing I had done my Christmas shopping way early in October. If I had to do my shopping in December, I would’ve crumbled into pieces! Now, I’m back at work (but at home), Christmas decorations in storage, pictures aplenty (which needs uploading in FB!) and millions of little pieces of wonderful memories of the holidays. Now on to make 2010 a prosperous, glorious year :)

My favorite season has arrived

Christmas is my favoratest holiday season and it's here :)  I love everything about Christmas and New Year - from the food, the decors, the lights, the Simbang Gabi, the gifts, wrapping the gifts, the parties and get-togethers.  The only thing I don't like about Christmas is the traffic.  Otherwise, I absolutely, positively love everything!

It's not surprising then that our Christmas tree has been up since November 2nd haha  And I've done some Christmas gift shopping too and wrapped them all already.  I still have a few to do, but the St James' Bazaar of Ayala Alabang will be the Christmas gift one stop shop :)  Btw, it's on November 27 to 30.  4 whole days of non-stop gorgeous bazaar shopping.  The hubs said that our flyer to the bazaar in on our ref door, while our neighbor didn't get theirs out of their mailbox.  Guess who's excited? LOL

Here's a pic of our tree.  My theme for the past two years is blue and silver.  I'm still looking for that ever elusive blue or white (with silver trimmings) angel so technically, our tree is still a work in progress.  I keep finding white angel with gold trimmings.  Or red and green angels.  Has there been a memo that angels cannot wear blue?