Only 12 Weeks
till Christmas! I can’t even believe it! How did that happen so
quickly??! Here in the Philippines Christmas officially starts on
September 1st and you can sense it everywhere you go, decorations
are out and Christmas music is playing. I love it! Here in the Philippines
Halloween is no big deal and Thanksgiving is only an American Holiday so why
not start celebrating now?
I am
super excited to have bought our tickets to be in Utah this year for Christmas.
YES! Last year we went to Uruguay to visit Daniel’s side of the family and made
a quick stop in Miami and Orlando. As much as we would love to see you again
this Christmas it can’t be done this time around, sorry :( we are going to be
in Utah which means that we get to see some of you. We missed seeing Hernan and
family this Summer but they are coming to Utah in December which means that we
would have seen all the kids and grandkids this year, except for Gabriel and
Danae in Ireland which is a good excuse for us to go to Europe one of these
days. Yay!
In two days, we will be landing in Salt Lake
as we do each October Conference, and attend meetings with the Presiding
Bishopric and this time we get to be at the sealing of Norah to Bianca and
Joseph on October 7th before they move back to New York. We’ll
return home to Manila the next day.
Now for gift giving: Last year when we
visited Uruguay I decided to give the same thing, (pearls) to all the women in
Uruguay. We took pearls to Abuela Nela, Estela, Sandra, Cecilia, Vanessa,
Camila, Pamela, Cristina, Laura, Noelia, Guille’s wife, Lexi and Vale. We took a photo showing off our set of
beautiful pearls. You can probably guess by now that I love pearls. We also
wanted to give something to the guys so we got them all ties; The list
included: Alejandro, Roberto, Miguel Angel, Luciano, Nico, Marcos, Nacho,
Guille, Santi, Rafa and Agustin and pajamas for the kiddos: Tiago, Celeste,
Joaquin, Abril, Josefina, and Victoria. We got extra gifts for Vale, Ale, Lexi,
Tiago and soon to be baby Nico that were given privately on Christmas day. I
probably forgot someone but you get the picture.
At Christmas, you
want to give something meaningful, but it is hard to figure out what people
like so you end up giving something you like for yourself hoping that they would
also like it too and it seems like the closer you get to the actual day the
more you resort to just buying anything that can be delivered in time for the
holidays which takes all the meaning right out of the gift. I used to do
my holiday shopping months in advance but I have not done it anymore since we
moved away to the other side of the world.
As I have spent
two Christmases in Uruguay, I discovered that gift exchange does not exist in the Rodriguez de Almeida family. Isn’t
that just wonderful! No stressing over buying anything for anybody unless those
people live under your own roof! And
no one feels obligated to give you anything just because you bought them a present.
Daniel’s sister Estela who came to visit from Brazil brought the family gifts
and I didn’t see any of her siblings worried about giving her anything in
return. This year we are a party of 37 and another grandbaby on the way. When
you add to that, Daniel’s extended side of the family and mine, the number is
more like 80 and you get to a point when you run out of ideas of what to get
everybody.
To make a
comparison, In Uruguay, I didn’t see that massive gift exchange I saw in El
Salvador from my family to all the random people we knew because they included
just about anyone who ever said hello to us during the year. Daniel’s family do
not even worry about doing a gift exchange where each person picks a name some
large families like to do, nope, drawing names is not necessary either because
when you think about it, all the Almeidas are in a position that we can most
likely buy what we need at any time of the year and not wait till Christmas.
Our family is
so very blessed! so there is absolutely no need to ever worry about buying gifs.
But of course, if you cannot phantom the idea of not giving a gift, especially
one that you made, then, please do! No one will get upset about getting a
present from you. We still intend to give gifts because is part of my personality
J
but don’t worry about us.
The only gift tradition we will do as a family every Christmas is to make a calendar with pictures.
Each year one of us will get a turn so that means that every 11 years it will
be somebodies turn as a couple to do it and I hope we can all handle that. It
is the one thing that makes abuela Nela and my mom, light up each year when they
see the pictures each month. We do it as part of our family history. It is the
only tradition we want to keep going. Mandy has offered to do the Calendar for
2018 so please send her your favorite photos A.S.A.P.
So here is the deal for the Almeida clan, gift giving tradition
is totally optional; no stressing over that please! However,
one tradition we can accommodate is that in case one of you know of a family in
need that we can all pitch in and do a sub for Santa like the one we did when
we lived in Utah, it would be awesome! It
is always better to give than to receive!
Feliz Navidad!
Con amor,
Vero
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