Welcoming 2017

Greetings everyone,

How is 2017 going for all of you? I really hope that it is great, because it is for me. I want to share to all of you how I welcome this year with my family. New Year is the only holiday in our house that matters the most, I don't know why, but maybe because it holds so much promises for everyone in my family. 

You all might notice that I did not post anything about Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, it is because we did not celebrate it. My parents slept on Christmas Eve because my father still has work in the morning, while my sister and I celebrated Christmas Eve holed up in her bedroom listening to KPop boy band, BTS, and eating macaroons and drinking soda. I know you might think it is sad to not celebrate Christmas but it really is not new to us. Our family is not so fond of celebrations, we barely celebrate birthdays or even anniversaries.

New Year's Eve is the most special holiday in our house, we are all looking forward to it and hoping that it will go well. There are a lot of preparations involved. On the last day of the 2016, we prepared the food that we are going to eat at New Year's Eve. My mother cooked linguine with bolognese sauce and made fresh fruit salad, while I made homemade cookies and cream ice cream, my father was given by his boss a chiffon cake, and my grandma made a rotini salad. 

On the last evening of 2016, we had roasted chicken for dinner then we watched television for a little while. By around 7:00 pm, my mother and I decided to sleep and set the alarm for 11:00 pm, but she woke up earlier because my father arrived from work. I woke up around 10:00 pm because my father said that it was movie time. It is our year-ending annual tradition to watch a movie and drink wine, I forgot what we watched last 2015 but last 2016 we watched The Suicide Squad. We don't watch countdown on television, because we like to watch our wall clock when it will struck midnight. We watched the firework shows in the sky and ten minutes later we are on the dining table eating. We finished our movie and watch National Geographic WILD on cable and the rest of my family decided to sleep around 2:00 am, while I stayed awake until 6:00 am just watching YouTube Videos. 

It might not be a grand celebration, but that is the best my family can do when it comes to celebration. We are just happy with the simple things and the intimacy we shared with one another. Plus, we are not a large family; there is only my mother, my father, my sister, our grandma, and me in the family. So we do not need a big celebration and so long as we are together and happy on New Year's Eve it is already a great celebration.

Love,

Niña Liza