Off The Cuff

Did you know my childhood did not include a Santa Claus? Nope I did not know him until I probably was 11 years old and I only knew of him because he graced the Christmas cards that we were to exchange with our classmates. By the time I got to know the "existence" of the bearded one, I was too old to believe. After all, he was supposed to know where every child was at Christmas eve and drop off presents at their homes. So for the past 11 years, I did not get any presents and so I was never going to believe anyway. I didn't get presents for Christmas. None of my neighbors and playmates did either. All we got is new dress and shoes (hopefully) for church service.

I am trying to remember a memorable Christmas for me. I cannot. There didn't seem any one that tower above the rest.

First off my entire childhood was kind of weird. I think it is. We lived in one compound, our house was in the front. Behind ours is my oldest brother's house where he and his family lived. And bringing up the rear is brother #3's house where he and his family lived. So we were together all the time. My playmates were my nieces and nephews.

My father was ill when I was born. My mother said he was already ill when I was conceived, which accounted for my sickly childhood. He contracted tuberculosis in the army. He battled the disease for a long time until his death when I was 17 years old.

So my father's health was always in the back of my mother's mind. We never traveled, because he was not healthy enough to do that. He was homebound, not bed bound thank heavens. But he was always sick. Thankfully, none of us had contracted tuberculosis, considering it's a communicable disease.

Thus Christmas was a simple affair. I thought my mother's poor upbringing did not allow her to experience any kind of Christmas. To her the pinnacle of Christmas celebration is to have a potful of steamy hot nilagang baka (boiled beef soup), a leg of ham cooked in 7-up, and a queso de bola (gouda). Sometimes, just to make the celebration go overboard, a bowl of fruit salad is on the table. Other times, it's spaghetti.

All these food on the table gave everyone a big smile and made our hearts sing, not to mention or stomachs very happy.

And so there was nothing pretty special about our celebrations. We did not decorate our house except for a parol. We did not have a Christmas tree until the very last Christmas before I left for California. I don't know where we got it, but I decorated a table top green fake Christmas tree and wore that dreadful pink lace eyelet straight dress (that I thought then was sooo elegant) at church, that made me look 20 years older than I was. I really don't have fashion sense even then.

Now that we're all here in California, each decorate his/her house and we follow the American tradition. We gather at one sibling's house for Christmas lunch, which is in reality a whole day's affair. It's potluck so the host doesn't get that much burdened. This year it's my year to host. I have my menu all written down. The hubby had made minor adjustments, especially to the dishes he would create.

I know someday there's one Christmas that will stand out, but for now, I am really happy with the simple way we celebrate Christmas. Then and now, we always, always go to church on Christmas Eve before all the eating can commence.

Happy Christmas everybody!

From Islam to Cosplay in One Night

Last night was a lazy night in our household. A load of laundry was all I could muster to do after a full-day's work. I don't think I was tired, I was just lazy. That's all.

Compounding this situation was the hubby's seemingly deliberate attempt to join my parked butt on the couch the whole night long. I actually have 2 very important things on my calender to complete last night, but well sad to say laziness won.

It wasn't an unproductive night however. While channel surfing I veered to PBS to check out if ANTIQUES ROADSHOW was on. I really enjoy watching this show and each time I watch it I tell myself that I have got to get me to visit antique stores around the area, which I never do because away from the tv screen, I have very little interest to go antique-ing.

There was no Antiques Roadshow last night. Instead, the station was showing part 1 of the documentary LIFE OF MUHAMMAD. Very interesting, very informative. I was glued to the tube, was so fascinating. Part 1 tackled his early life until he started to hear the words of God.

I have always been curious about other religions outside of Christianity and this is a very good way of learning about Islam. I'm thinking about showing this to the congregation one day so they too could learn more about other religion.

The show is a 3-part series and I have to find out when they will show the continuation parts. But I'm really really interested. What a good film.

Later on after the documentary was over, my channel surfing found me on Syfy, which is one of the favorite channels in my household. The hubby is a huge sci-fi fan and we watched so many of these crazy unbelievably outrageous movies on Syfy like the Sharknado, remember this? Well if you don't know what his tv movie is I'll tell you. It's a movie about tornado filled sharks, so once the tornado touches ground the people get eaten by sharks. Stupid and so so bad. But well I believe when it debuted on Syfy, the social media was abuzz with #sharknado.

Anyway, last night there was no movie, but there was a show called Heroes of Cosplay. Okay so I'm not totally clueless about cosplay. I have heard of it online somehow. I know it has something to do with sci-fi characters and that people are fully garbed in costumes and they role play or something.

What I didn't know before I watched this show was that the people participating in cosplay have dreams and aspirations of becoming costume designers, etc. And the road to convention is littered with hopes and excitement, frustrations and hard work, creativity and more hard work. I did not realize that to compete in costume competition one must be able to create his/her own costume and it's not enough that you copy a character's costume. One must be creative in doing so, must use different techniques and the degree of difficulty in creating the costume is judged heavily. In addition one must also play up to the character once on stage. It's a lot of hardwork. I salute those people who do this.

I was really impressed with their creativity. I used to enjoy sewing when I was younger. My mother had a sewing machine. She was a great seamstress. She used to earn money sewing dresses once upon time. Her weakness is in making patterns. She can sew if she has a pattern, but creating a pattern is not her strong suite.

Anyway, when I was younger I also dabbled in sewing, which I thought was really weird of me because none of my friends were into it. But I went ahead and made dresses for my dolls.

Then high school came around and the ugly reality of peer pressure came into fold. I abandoned the sewing machine.

Seeing this show last night I marvelled at how one's husband was not only the designer of her fabulous glowing dress, but he was also the one who tailored it, which I think is really against the rule. If I heard it correctly at most help would be 15% of the entire costume.

I have a few sewing projects in my closet right now. What I don't have aside from time is a sewing machine. I really don't need a fancy machine, just something that can stitch something together. Coincidentally while at Target over the weekend I spied 3 different kinds of sewing machines and none of them were over $300. I think it's high time I save up for a sewing machine and take up sewing again, even if only to alter jeans and such. After all altering can be really expensive outside.