**Retrieved from Friendster blog**
Hey all, so it's Christmas Day (and yes, I do still say "Merry Christmas" sometimes instead of Happy Holidays, but I do prefer saying "Happy Holidays" because there is more than one holiday celebrated in December, and I'm not religious), and I'm at my parents' home in good ol' Diamond Bar, CA. It's good to be here, to relax, to make up all the sleep I've lost from working and partying and traveling and overextending myself this past year. I haven't felt this relaxed in a long long long as* time, and it's great. I can take a deep breath, relax, and revert to being a kid again.
I got the most painful "deep tissue massage" ever (was really a cross between reflexology, acupuncture, cupping, chiropractic adjustment, and physical therapy), went to see the Blind Boys of Alabama at the Disney Concert Hall (great venue), got my hair cut, played tennis with my dad (he beat me 1-6, 0-6, but any time I even win one game from him, I consider it a victory), played video games and poker with my siblings (Erika won both), woke up early this morning to go jogging (it's hard jogging in this neighborhood, lots of hills), ate breakfast with my parents, and am now waiting for everyone else to wake up.
Life is good.
We had hot pot last night, and then I got out the Peppermint Pig that Rebekah gave me for Christmas. Apparently, there's this tradition where you pass around this peppermint pig-shaped candy, people hit it with a little hammer, and then share stories of the past year. Rebekah told us this at lunch one day, and none of us had ever about it before. It was fun, though, killing that poor pig, and it started us all telling stories about the past year and our earliest memories. I don't really have any memories from before age 4. Felix has a vague memory of almost drowning when he was 2. Ben remembers peeing in his diaper?!? Felix remembered trying to stick keys into an outlet. Ben remembered having a nightmare and me comforting him and draping a Charlie Brown comforter over a chair near his crib and telling him to look at the comforter and dream about Snoopy, and he did. We told the story about Ben, as a baby, being in the back of the station wagon (funny how that was considered safe and acceptable back then, to have a baby crawling around in the back). We were on the highway, stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. We always had a bunch of old tennis balls rolling around in the back--I guess for us to play with? And at one point a car pulled up next to us and a guy leaned over and said, "Did you know that you have tennis balls coming out of your back window?" we looked behind us and saw baby Ben happily throwing tennis balls out of the window.
Ah, memories. Ah, family. I also, as usual, look through old photo albums and read old diaries whenever I'm home. It's funny to see how much and yet how little things have changed for me. How things that were so important, dramatic, emotional for me in high school and college are now so far in the past as to be almost forgotten. But they've still shaped me into who I am today. And in ten years, I'll be reading my diary about all the stuff that happened in this past year.
I love to use the end of the year to reflect on what has happened in the past year, and to make new goals and resolutions for the coming year--but that's another post.
Okay, just wanted to say Happy Holidays to everyone! If you're in LA, drop me a line, let's hang out! I'll be back in NY on January 2nd.
Life is good.
We had hot pot last night, and then I got out the Peppermint Pig that Rebekah gave me for Christmas. Apparently, there's this tradition where you pass around this peppermint pig-shaped candy, people hit it with a little hammer, and then share stories of the past year. Rebekah told us this at lunch one day, and none of us had ever about it before. It was fun, though, killing that poor pig, and it started us all telling stories about the past year and our earliest memories. I don't really have any memories from before age 4. Felix has a vague memory of almost drowning when he was 2. Ben remembers peeing in his diaper?!? Felix remembered trying to stick keys into an outlet. Ben remembered having a nightmare and me comforting him and draping a Charlie Brown comforter over a chair near his crib and telling him to look at the comforter and dream about Snoopy, and he did. We told the story about Ben, as a baby, being in the back of the station wagon (funny how that was considered safe and acceptable back then, to have a baby crawling around in the back). We were on the highway, stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. We always had a bunch of old tennis balls rolling around in the back--I guess for us to play with? And at one point a car pulled up next to us and a guy leaned over and said, "Did you know that you have tennis balls coming out of your back window?" we looked behind us and saw baby Ben happily throwing tennis balls out of the window.
Ah, memories. Ah, family. I also, as usual, look through old photo albums and read old diaries whenever I'm home. It's funny to see how much and yet how little things have changed for me. How things that were so important, dramatic, emotional for me in high school and college are now so far in the past as to be almost forgotten. But they've still shaped me into who I am today. And in ten years, I'll be reading my diary about all the stuff that happened in this past year.
I love to use the end of the year to reflect on what has happened in the past year, and to make new goals and resolutions for the coming year--but that's another post.
Okay, just wanted to say Happy Holidays to everyone! If you're in LA, drop me a line, let's hang out! I'll be back in NY on January 2nd.
