Christmas sweater party

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It was a cold evening, that Christmas Eve... perfect for the party's theme: "ugly" sweater... I put quotation marks for ugly because the sweaters, despite being pretty, are deemed stereotypes for the holidays. I didn't know that there was a theme until my mom insisted that I get a Christmas-themed sweater... so I got one with Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer.

The host for this year's party is Tita Babie and family. As always, her house is fully decked for the holidays. So many fairy lights outlining her house even in the dead of night!


Inside the house, the party atmosphere was in full swing. The kids were all playing, the adults were all catching up with stories over delicious food.



Tita Babie's house is also fully decorated for the holidays with angels, Christmas villages, and lit gift boxes. It feels like being in a crowded Santa's workshop, methinks. Except that there are no elves tonight.





Ate Maddie brought some desserts over. The best seller for the evening was the strawberry Santa Claus. People were just popping these in their mouths as they pass by the dinner table! I passed on the strawberries, opting to eat the choco chip cookies instead (less competition).


The highlight of the evening was this Christmas' "white elephant", a means of exchanging gifts that allows people to snatch others' gifts if they wanted to. A few years back, people brought crockpots. There were five of them up for grabs. The crockpot was subsequently banned from the white elephant. This year, there were three Magic Bullets to give away. I'm sure that these will also be banned in next year's white elephant.


Other gifts included vacuum cleaners, steam irons, backpacks, popcorn and gift cards, and videoke microphones. There were bottles of wine in the mix too. I got one of the Magic Bullets... perfect, because Anna wants one. 

After all the eating and the gift-giving, it was time to burn off the calories. Sally Alinaya, Kuya Merlin's sister, led the group to aerobic dancing following the steps on a video on YouTube.


And that's how we welcomed Christmas 2017. I wonder how the New Year's Eve celebration will be like... 

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