Holiday Hiatus

As per my usual posts this time of year, it's time for me to take a break from this blog and enjoy the holidays. My blog will be on hiatus until sometime after the new year.

Until then, I hope to upload some holiday pictures to my photo page prior to my return, so feel free to check those out. I look forward to returning to this blog in 2012.

Happy holidays to everyone and enjoy the New Year!

Holiday Songs

I've been listening to nothing but holiday music these last couple of days (don’t worry, I feel fine…I’m just trying to embrace the holidays…). Ha! I have my favorite songs on repeat and, trust me, it does wonders to keep me sane and happy during this very busy holiday season. I’m sharing my top songs below:

Bing Crosby - White Christmas – A classic oldie. I fell in love with this song after watching the movie years ago. And, I think, after spending the holidays in NYC a few years ago and really being able to experience a “white Christmas”…I love this song even more.

Kenny G - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – If you want a good holiday song that is subtle and quiet (that really allows you to appreciate the holiday season), it’s this song. You can have this song on in the background and just soak up the holiday atmosphere. It’s really one of those classic holiday songs that you just can’t get tired of hearing. Well ok, I can’t.

Jim Brickman - The Gift - This is the song that I absolutely love. If I were to ever have a winter wedding, this is the song that I would want to be played. It's a nice, sweet love song that is so perfect for the holidays. I love it.

Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You - How can anyone not love this song? It's a longtime favorite of mine and the epitome of Christmas and the holiday season. And it helps that it's pretty catchy and awesome.

Nsync - Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays - I've never made my love for this song a secret (although my brother still tries to pretend he doesn't absolutely loooove it...), but I do love this song and I'm totally not ashamed to admit it. :-) Even though most of my love for this song has a lot to do with the memories that come along with it, I still can't get enough of it. I really can't go through the holidays without listening to this song, at least, a couple dozen times. It's just so good.

Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far. :-)

Reconnecting

The holiday season is a great time (and excuse) to get together with people you haven't seen in awhile to reconnect and catch up.

It was ladies night on Saturday night. We all enjoyed a night out to dinner to hang out and catch up with each other. As good as the night was and as much as I enjoyed myself, can I just say for the record, that girls who can't be separated from their other halves for ONE evening...really piss me off. I have nothing against the boyfriend...and nothing against the couple in general...but you know, sometimes it's nice to be able to have fun and hang out with someone without their other half around. Why? Not because you're doing anything you're not suppose to be doing, not because you have anything to hide and not because you don't love the other person...but for the sole and simple reason that we all exist outside of a relationship and...your friends really miss you. It's nice to be able to just hang out with your friends and enjoy everyone's company without your partner...for one fuckin' night! Ugh. I can't comment on this any further...but damn, it's annoying.

On a separate, but related, note, I attended a funeral for one of my old martial arts/lion dance instructors on Saturday. And as sad as the occasion was, I have to say that I'm really glad that I attended and grateful that I got a chance to pay my last respects. At the funeral, I saw a bunch of people that I haven't seen in, literally, years and it was really nice. It was a total blast from my past and a reminder of an old chapter in my life from way back when.

I used to perform Chinese lion dancing years and years ago and some of my best memories growing up are with my old friends from my lion dance group. We had lion dance practice every Friday night, performed at various events on the weekends and hung out together a lot during Chinese New Year time (the busiest season of all). However, as we all got older and went our separate ways for college...well, we all kinda lost touch as we went about our lives. But I guess it takes times like these to bring people back together and provide us with the opportunity to reconnect. It was nice to see everyone...although, let me just say, seeing some of the younger kids from the group all grown up now is a little...unsettling. Haha.

But ok, all in all, I had a great weekend reconnecting with friends. :-)

Grown-Up Parties

I accompanied a friend to his company's holiday party. It was a semi-formal affair and consisted of plenty of food, alcohol and adults. However, I found myself staring at a woman who had brought her daughter to the holiday party as her "+1 date". Her elementary school daughter was dressed very nicely (I'm not complaining about that)...but she was having a fit about being tired and her feet hurting from standing most of the night (this is what I'm complaining about). She wined, she cried and she complained...all night long. x-(

Now, I don't know if this is kosher, but why would any parent bring their young kid to a "grown-up" holiday party? Can't they just host their own "family themed" party some other time and leave the kids at home? I only ask this since the kid looked miserable, her mom looked stressed and everyone at the party just looked uncomfortable. I say, either leave the kid at home with a sitter and come out to the party...or skip the party and stay with the kid. What's so hard about that? It just makes no sense to me why anyone would bring their kid to these types of formal functions.

So lady, if you're reading this, take note of this for next time and make a smarter decision about what to do with your kid.

Awesome Weekend

This weekend went by way too fast. I mean, way way too fast. Time sure does fly when you're having fun...and I had butt loads of fun this weekend. Holiday party season has officially started and I'm enjoying every second of it. But more importantly, not only did I have the most kick ass weekend...but we all have something great to look forward to...a Niners post-season.

The Niners shut out the Rams today to clinch their division and reserve a spot in the playoffs. Ok, it wasn't the prettiest victory...or the best the Niners have ever played...but you know what? It got the job done and they're in the playoffs. It's gonna be a great holiday season!

Oh...and I'm too lazy to sort, upload and caption my pictures from this weekend, so I just posted a few random ones below:

It's dance time.

Mini chocolate brownies in toffee shells.

A chocolate toffee tart.

December

December is here and it's gonna be awesome. Why? Because I'm gonna make it freakin' awesome. I need an awesome month to close out a pretty kickass year.

Do you all remember my blog post from the beginning of this year? Yeah, it was pretty depressing. But you know what? Turning 30 wasn't so bad. Haha. Who knows...maybe that explains why I had such a great year...because the expectations were so low to begin with. Not the best way to start a new year if you ask me. :-/ But hey, whatever, I'm glad to say that (overall) my year went much better than I had expected. Very very glad.

But anyway, it's the beginning of December and I have 31 more days to go. We're at the start of the holiday season...and it's time to live it up and party like a rock star. Bring on December! :-)