The Christmas Listicle

It must be all that crispy ulo or Excelente ham that caused me this inability to come up with a coherent, free-flowing storytelling of my Christmas this year so here's a "listicle" on the 5 happenings and whatnots that made it a Naughty (and Nutty!) and Nice Christmas instead  ◔ ⌣ ◔

1. Annual "We Made It! (haha)" Christmas dinner, though this year's dinner did not exactly scream "We made it!", more like "We can make it! Or "We're almost there!"

With all restaurants in our must-try list fully booked, we ended up in Terraz at Zuellig Building, just near my office in Makati Ave. It was a surprisingly good find as the place was perfect for our small group of five and our big appetite for yummy, inventive dishes.


The Terraz Chef Salad
(who cares about the leaves, get it for the crispy parma ham and grilled bacon) 


Spicy Terraz Corned Beef Adobo
(They use corned beef in everything these days. The crispy kesong puti
and garlic rice that  went with it made for a lovely combo)


Grilled Bacon Wrapped Pork Medallion and Foie Gras
(yummiest of them all)

Plus, if it's got an amazing city lights view, then we're sold.




View of the restaurant's interiors from the deck outside

We went to nearby Blackbird for post-dinner wine and cheese. I have nothing much to say about the place, except that Kris got locked up in the restroom. Haha!

2. Hassle-free, tamad lang, Instagram shopping

Because who's got time to battle it out with the mall swarm?

CheeCups by Team Johnny for the office
My personal favorites are Tiramisu, Reese's and Almond Kiss
3. Mandatory exchange gifts (NSFW-ness of gifts not required)

I gave out cute coin purses from Quirks (although why I'm never getting anything from Quirks again is a separate, long story) and got these dice (and a flirty pink floral dress that's not in the photos) in return. They say your gifts say more about you than the person you're giving them to. What do these say about my friends?

What I gave out (Photo stolen from Quirks' website.
I was so disappointed with my purchase that I didn't bother taking photos.)

What I got

4. Delikada 90: My 2nd HVMO Christmas Party

As part of this year's Christmas committee, I know the amount of effort that everyone put into this party. It was a "karir" 90s party--from the theme that's translated to the games (who else holds Tekken competitions in the office?), the awards, the posters and teasers (yes, there were posters and teasers. and an event page) to everyone's costume. I'm just happy to be surrounded by such passionate and talented people.  


TJ's photo stolen from Racine
I came as Helga and not as Barbie.
Here's Arnold beside me to prove it. Photo stolen from Mela.

 
Ms Bambie's photo stolen from Mela again

Photo stolen from Gera


Photo stolen from Mimi stolen from Pilar

5. The loooong Christmas break

Agency shutdown woot!

This banana wishes you a Merry Christmas!
Mascot head stolen from Patrick B.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Batanes Story

Image
I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶a̶l̶s̶.̶ ̶ I have simple requisites for rather "fancy" life goals. Case in point: I want to go to Paris to hug (and not even to eat!) a brown bag full of hot, freshly-baked baguettes. Never mind that the Eiffel Tower's standing right behind me, asking for a selfie. I want to go to New York to take the subway in a trenchcoat and Manolos--looking like I'm in a rush just because. Haha. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got to tick off another simple item from my list, and that is to wear a vakul in Batanes. Yay!  The vakul is a headgear made from abaca that is designed to protect Ivatans (Batanes locals) from the heat and the rain. It goes well with the kanayi (vest) and the backpack, don't you think? The whole ensemble's so "abacard" (hahaha get it? 😛). Too bad the kanayi's  actually for men.  With one clear objective in mind, I felt so accomplished already after having tried the vakul. But-...
Read more

Code Elephant, Ping pong and Sticky Rice

Image
So much for codes! Nothing can be more obvious clues to what's coming up than elephants, ping pong and sticky rice. In a pledge to get lost in life and all things (and people) that get me excited more than a bag of Cheetos Jalapeño, I found myself in Bangkok with my best friends on day 7 of being 27. One of the gays was OC enough to make an itinerary, daily themes and visual pegs included:  Copyright 2014. With an itinerary like this, what can possibly not go wrong? Hahaha   Technically Day 2 but Feels Like Day 1 Because Day 1 Started at 2:30am and Ended at around 4am: "Shopaholic B*" For us girls who enjoy dressing up, Bangkok will always be shopping heaven (a very hot and temptations-laden heaven at that). New wardrobe hoarding being the main purpose of our trip, we set off for Chatuchak, Platinum Mall and Siam Paragon the first chance we got.  Kris and I got these hats from Chatuchak that screamed tr è s chic. Or tr è s...
Read more

What's it really like, traveling solo?

Image
I found that there are 3 common reactions to "I'm going to travel alone": 1)  ang lakas ng loob mo!  2)  inggit ako  (or similarly, dream  ko rin 'yan ) and 3)  sana mahanap mo na dun si  'the one'.  The first would make you double, triple, quadruple check your already carefully planned out itinerary because why does it seem like everybody's scared for you when you're not even scared for yourself? Fine, you'll get about 20% scared for yourself because you'll realize that you're not really that good with maps but you're the best at getting lost or taking the long route home.  The second would excite you either because you can't wait to one-up everybody else who hasn't done it yet (!) or simply because it used to be a dream for you too.  And the third would make you wonder  "bakit nadamay si  'the one'?" ...and " taiwanese  (or whatever nationality)  talaga si ' the one'?!"  Ewan . ...
Read more