Christmas with My Complete Family

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🎁 🎄 ChristoPho and Jimmy 🎄🎁 . . He’s not a special friend or just a roommate. He’s my partner and it means so much to me to say it in words to my family and to have our relationship acknowledged and celebrated 💝👨‍❤️‍👨🌟. Thank youuuu @maiboo76 / @bennys_journey for this gift. I’m keeping it forever.

A post shared by Christopho (@letopho) on Dec 26, 2018 at 2:41pm PST

Eric told me that moments like these make you fall in love with your partner all over again.   I wholeheartedly agree.  Seeing him interact with my family and being with me during a very important time just really solidified that this person is who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with.  It has already become easier to think of marriage because he's met my aunts and uncles.  When they get that invitation they won't be confused about a mysterious boy who've they never met.  And even if this is the only Christmas he can attend, it was sufficient to feel that he had become integrated and that our relationship was acknowledged.

I knew that bringing him to Christmas was important, I made it a big deal and it made me nervous, but when it actually happened it felt natural.  He was welcomed and everyone was happy that he was there.

My mom cooked us so many meals.  He was included in all group photos.  People got him gifts.  He wasn't used to such a materialistic style of the holidays, but embraced it knowing that this is how I was raised.  Socks for everyone.  Gift cards.  More things!  Like an all American family we use our words and we buy gifts.    My extrovert family was overwhelming, and lucky for him, they didn't force him to play Christmas songs on the piano.

What made it easy was introducing him has my partner.  Removing the gender (boyfriend) made it less about being gay, but more about being with a human that I love.  It was easier to say and more impactful at the same time.

"This is my partner Jimmy."

Jimmy made this amazing video of the holiday week with my family and my friends in San Jose and it goes without saying that there's no turning back and we're in it together for the long run.


Visual Diary: The Holiday from Jimmy Raymond on Vimeo.

2014 Ignia Christmas Party

Cards in Foothill Park behind my parent's house

Hello very neglected blog.  I hate how writing has fallen so far down my priority list, but it comes with the sad reality of just being busier in life.  I picked up a second gig helping a friend out with his app which takes up a lot of my free time.  Work, try new places to eat, gig... there is little room for writing anymore.

But I happy that I have a few minutes to spare while I wait for 24 gigs of photos and videos to transfer onto my external and traffic to die down.  What should this entry be about?  The 12th Annual Ignia party of course!!

The Portland girls asked to get some authentic Vietnamese food so we gave my mom a break this year and headed to Pho Ha per Sandy's suggestions.  I usually get gifts for everyone from that year's travel, but I didn't have time.  Instead I decided to buy everyone dinner.  Everyone gave me a big thank you except Sandy.  She responded, "can I have a box sir?"  Which made me burst out into laughter.  I gave her a giant hug.

I pulled out lots of alcohol, but the majority of us just enjoyed some Bailey's hot chocolate.

I control the Secret Santa and rigged it so that you did not get the person you had up to 4 years ago!  We agreed that next year will authentically be random.  My secret santa was Alysia, she made it easy with a wish list of obscure things like measuring cups that include 3/4 and 2/3 cups.  Are you kidding me?  A sleep mask that I actually own and Rooibos tea.  I went to 3 stores to get her that!

Our traditional group photo.  We sat in the same spot as last year.  I wish we kept the order all the years, but it's okay.  My dad suggestion us make monster faces... lol.  Close enough

There's a gap in the group photo because Caitlin was missing.  She was celebrating in Idaho that year.  Nothing that FaceTime on the iPhone 6+ can't fix!  check out that group photo.  I'm printing this one for our families.

We're a silly group of people who enjoy playing board games.  This year we played the following:

Concept - Diana's new pretentious board game
Things - Where you write and guess who wrote what
21 - A drinking game where you assign a rule to each number

Next year we might mix it up by bringing plus ones.  Or maybe we should spare our significant others the awkwardness that is our forever in high school energy.

Oh and Diana and Myself finally won a game of SPADE!  YES!

Family Christmas - Kathy House

This year we celebrated Christmas at Kathy's house.  She recently bought an amazing home and wanted to take the opportunity to host the family event.  He home has cooloer lighting so the photos are less warm with yellow tint compared to Christmas parties traditionally at my parents house.  And Jimmy insisted that I take his street DSLR for a run.  I'm glad I did.  I was able to take some wonderful shots of my cousin's amazing setup.

My cousin Jessica rocked my taste buds with this brie + chili jam combo from Trader Joes.  Everyone was showing off their talents this year.

Crystal brought a cookie decorating contest.  These are the winners!

Cousin picture!

These rugrats used Uncle Wayne's belly as a slide.

Dinner feast!  Pretty epic.  I got the family nice and warm with Hot Toddies.

Present time!  I got my 3 lovely cousins work out tank tops with sayings that match their personalities.  I proclaimed, "I know your Keywords!"  They loved it.

Family picture!  I'm starting to see where I get my vanity from.  Check out my Dad and his sister posing!  Though my dad is actually making fun of my aunt with what Ernesto calls, "the triangle of insecurity" formed by the arm on the hip.

What's a diva home with out a shoe room?

#queen

Family Christmas at Home

Because my cousin offered to host the large family Christmas party at her house on Christmas Day, my mom got a break.  We were able to spend Christmas Eve having a wonderful dinner, opening presents and going to church.  Nothing made my mom happier.

The food was delicious!

I like this shot of my grandpa and brother.  My mom complains that she can't go on vacation because she's worried about her dad.  She essentially has 4 boys to take care of.

Every year my parents get my grandpa something warm - scarf, gloves, knit cap.  And he always loves it.  This year was a good year for gift giving.  I splurged a little for my family and my brother was excited to give us all gives now that he has a job.  I'm really proud of him.  I'm going to keep that messenger bag he got me for a while!  My mom got Macy's gift cards from both me and my brother.  She said she was going to buy something special with the gift cards so that she can think of us.  Dad was easy: a sweater and finally that souvenir from Indonesia that he wanted.  I got my brother a handful of graphic tees and a watch.  He's a December baby so he deserves more.

My parents after the gift exchange.

Every year we take this family photo.  This year we just couldn't get the angle right.  Above is the winner.

We even through angry, solemn Chinese facial expressions.

My mom had to help my Grandpa smile.  He eventually got it.


Other family pictures:

Me and my brother being goofy.

My dad working on an oil painting

Pho with family.  They opened up a pretty good spot near my house.  I was happy.

My mom lining me up.  

Who could ask for a better family?

Candyland - 321 Christmas Party

The thing about Christmas is that I can decorate the house with the tackiest decorations and no one can judge.  The house looks like the Christmas section of the dollar store exploded... which it sort of did since I keep adding to my Christmas collection.

This year's theme was Candyland!!  Which I thought was easy, except I couldn't find any decorations.  I was discouraged until I realized... I could just hang candycanes in the hallway and just scatter candy all over the tables.  Done.

We had the photobooth in Andrew's room and as of late, he's been taking the opportunity above and beyond and surprised me with a CandyCrush backdrop that he printed from FedEx Office.  $$$$$!

This made me so happy.  Sometimes I feel as though I put too much effort into these parties, spending too much, going over the top... but when when Andrew presents these creative creations I can't but be really thankful that there's someone else equally insane.

A lot of things going on in this picture which makes me laugh.

Ern/Erik got the house an inflatable Unicorn which matches perfectly with the theme of the house: random.

Gifts got creative this year which a couple of highlights:

• One of a kind KFC candle.. "too unique a gift to pass up" proclaimed Jon when he stole the gift
• A one month subscription to SeanCody - which was interesting to our honorable lesbian
• Very popular Fashion swag that was stolen many times

Last year we had a white elephant game with 56 people which I was sweating to manage.  We had to cut down the invite list since the house was going to fall a part which pained me greatly since I always want to introduce new friends.  We hit 30 which felt more intimate and manageable and everyone went home early to other other parties since it was a popular Saturday.