Christmas 2020

[elusivek]

Only for those really interested to hear how we speak as a family (mixture of English, Portuguese, Cantonese, and some Patua, maybe) (I don't recall if there was much Patua spoken in the videos I'll be posting), this is a video-heavy post.

I have 0 video editing skills, so these are all candid and unedited.

First I have the preparations we made for the party. I explain a little bit of what we have. The "cake" I mentioned is a Christmas Cake, I guess. I don't know if it has a proper name, but we have always just called it "Cake". Mom has one age-old Cake that she has kept for maybe 6 years (but I like to joke it's around 35 years), and she takes it out of the freezer every year, pours brandy over it, let it soak, slices a couple slices out to serve, then wraps up the remaining and keeps it in the freezer again.

That parrot we have on the wall is fake, by the way. We've been told it looks a bit real. So just clarifying, LOL.

And.... the food is served! OMG Dad outdid himself. That lobster salad and roast beef were heavenly. The Bacalhau pasties (Pastéis de Bacalhau) and Caramal Pudding were brought in by an Aunt.

Here's another similar shot and sequence, but with people hanging around already!

Frankie just being Frankie. I was surprised when I reviewed the video that the Trumps were on the TV, must have been a news segment and the news played their speech, I guess.

One of my cousin's wife (Rosa) takes a photo of their children's generation every year. I don't have the photos over the years to show how they've grown, but here's one from this year, from the furthest one (oldest) to the one nearest the camera (youngest): Vanessa, Cristiano, Eduardo (my godson), Delfino, Silvino (my godson), and Eliana (not my goddaughter but she's a bit confused as her brother calls me godmom and she's ended up calling me godmom sometimes. I've contemplated telling her I'm not her godmom but that seemed a little crushing since she's not baptized and doesn't have a godmom, so I never told her that outright)

Finally, it's the Christmas Presents give out. As I mentioned, it's not an exchange, not a dirty santa type of thing, it's EVERYONE GETS SOMETHING FROM EVERYONE. So here, Aunt Virginia started with her presents give out. This is what happens every year. We give out presents by seniority, though I don't know why we started with Aunt Virginia (Aunt Natercia being the oldest with my Mom's part of the family). Now imagine, after Aunt Virginia, gives out the presents, then Aunt Natercia, then my Mom, then the oldest cousin, then the next, and the next, and the next... Finally, since I'm the youngest in my generation of cousins, I was the last to give out my presents. I think it took an hour to give out all the presents!

Erm, within the family, I'm called Kati (Katy?) but if anyone outside of the family calls me that I cringe. Call me Kat (my "professional" nickname), call me Kathe (some friends do that), call me Kata (nickname from Primary and Secondary school), just don't call me Kati please.

For some reason, Mom asked for a family photo. To my memory, we never had a family group family of the Macau side of the family. We did one shoddy one, LOL

Here's one from the 1980s (I guess 1985) of my family in Austria. I'm not the youngest one in my generation of cousins in the Austrian family! And it's not complete, we have 2 more cousins since this old photo, but I don't think we ever went to take a full family photo. I should make a proper scan of this photo later!

Aaaannndd... finally, my presents haul! Not a bad haul this year. Almost everyone gave bath stuff (I guess it's safe LOL). The funny one was when Cousin Jorge gave out the Victoria's Secret bag, we were all laughing. "You seriously aren't giving us lingerie?" We joked. He replied, "yeah if the size doesn't fit, talk to me!" LOL. It's a set of bath shower and lotion stuff only though. I also got some cash in those envelops, but nowadays we are all going cashless, so I'll probably just go deposit them in the bank after the Chinese New Year.

And before I close, I hope everyone had an enjoyable break, be it a Christmas break, winter break, another type of holiday that I don't know of break! Have a fabulous weekend!

Comments

[hermitsmurf.livejournal.com]

Wow looks like a lot of great food and a fun time with family!

[deepseasiren.livejournal.com]

I like that tapestry of infant Jesus. I heard the dog barking throughout lol

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Merry Christmas. I 'm glad your day was lovely!

[amw.livejournal.com]

This is awesome! Thank you so much for letting us into your family's celebrations. It is really interesting to hear the mix of all these different languages, and also see the mix of cultures in food (like stollen!) Is it you narrating the first video? The accent is like my Dutch family, mix with some Guangdong feeling. Very cool to see it, i haven't been at a big Christmas celebration like this in a long long time.