It’s the day after Christmas. I’m home from home, rested and unpacked. Now I shall take a few minutes to blog before I head for the office.

To continue where I left off last night, we woke up Christmas morning to a breakfast of lugaw (rice porridge) with various Chinese condiments (e.g. pickled seaweed, spiced cucumbers, mahu meat powder). Then we gathered around the tree to tear open our gifts. I got three nice polo shirts, five handkerchiefs, a lavender-oatmeal body bar, a rather large flashlight, a Palm IIIxe from my parents, and a pack of WriteRights from my brother.

Yes, that’s right. A PalmIIIxe. Oh-ah.

I’m quite glad Dad liked the VCD I authored for him; an MPEG-1 transfer of our Palau dive trip. For Mom, a backpack for her camping and hiking trips. For my elder brother, a shoe hanger/tote and a Jim Chappell CD. For my younger brother Raymond, a new Verve Pipe CD, and for my younger younger brother Javi, a Bench belt and a game: Thief.

The rest of the day was spent tinkering around with our respective presents and resting up, while Mom presided over a gaggle of maids in the kitchen, whipping up roast turkey, cranberry jelly, pesto, buttered corn, and other savory dishes for a Christmas party at home. At around 7pm, relatives from Dad’s side began arriving; the same people we had visited the night before. It was quite a fun night, which I spent mostly speaking with Lola again, and watching my cousins and uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces run around or play cards or generally sit around and talk about things (action dependent on age group). Later on, we capped off the night with Christmas Karaoke. I sang a pretty good “Yesterday” and “Sound of Silence,” if I may say so myself.

I slept late because I typed out that blog entry last night, and I spent about another hour fiddling with my Palm under the blankets. I’ve transferred my whole phone book in there already.

I need to get to work now, to tie up all the loose ends before the company officially closes shop in January. Early tomorrow morning, I’m meeting up with my family at the airport for our diving trip in Bohol.