Photo Week #51
Merry Christmas, everyone! My past week has been filled with lots of quality time spent with quality people. And, of course, lots and lots of food!
I was a part of several white elephants and Secret Santas this year, and spent a whole night wrapping presents. I tried to arrange them nicely but unfortunately do not have enough marble table real estate to take fancy #flatlay photos. Since my previous roommate moved out, there was also a lack of Christmas decorations around the house, but hey, at least this little corner was festive for a while!
A sampling of the food I helped to make for potlucks – deviled eggs (it takes longer to peel a hard boiled egg nicely than I anticipated, and apparently slightly older eggs are better for hard boiling, but not very old eggs) and lots and lots of little spam misubis. Aren’t they cute?
First white elephant – sadly got a NY Times daily crossword calendar stolen from me. But it was a fun night with my old coworkers, laughing over the funny presents and at our graphic designer’s fancy way of showing which way the 6 is supposed to go.
Second white elephant – and a night of being overly competitive over video games and eating up all the food. Wish that more of us could have been there – but hopefully there will be more hangouts (aka video game nights) in the near future when more of us are around!
The third event of the weekend – a holiday wedding brunch hosted by my brother and Dawn, where I did not help with any of the food because my presence in the kitchen was more inconvenience than helpful.
And of course right after stuffing ourselves full from lunch, we went out to dinner where our parents toasted each other with Jose Cuervo. Just kidding, homemade plum wine that was stored in a Jose Cuervo bottle. Cheers!
Over Christmas Eve and Christmas, my family and a few of our family friends drove up to Tahoe together – no snow, but it was fun to just have a getaway vacation. We had another white elephant and played lots of board games.
This was also the first time that I’ve actually gone out on a boat onto Lake Tahoe, and it makes me want to revisit again in the summer when it’s not as cold!
The skies over San Ramon were beautiful the night before the holiday wedding brunch – no VSCO editing required (although I did try at first). For some reason, I feel a little bit down before the holidays and New Years, even though I know I will be spending it with family and there is no lack of love or joy at home. I haven’t fully analyzed myself yet, but maybe it’s because I don’t like the ending of things and change is really scary for me. I never feel like I did enough in the past year and I get nervous that the new year is starting – another year for dreams to be unfulfilled and plans to be flipped upside down. But I need to remind myself that even if (or when) those things happen, everything will be okay! I will never reach my “peak self” or my prime. There is no ceiling to happiness.