Precious Christmas with family at this time of Covid19

By Vanette Colmenares

New York – It’s the day after Christmas and I was so stuffed. Two days of non-stop eating meat and sweets was getting into me big time – so I relaxed and enjoyed the pictures of friends and families across the globe on Facebook.

What do I notice first? The food, of course, its presentation, and then the smiles on the faces. In that order.

Preparation prior to Christmas eve was stressful (as it always has been) although I had prepared my potluck of seafood in advance. I had to take out my hidden gifts for my family which I shopped months before in order to wrap them. Everything was done in the knick of time.

Our Woodside Christmas eve party started at 5PM and had dinner an hour later. Since it was too early for midnight, the four young ones (and two once young) did some Texas Hold’em poker with me coaching my teenage granddaughter.

I reminded her of some terms like ‘royal flush’, ‘full house’ and all that stuff, she started looking at her phone and showing it on my face while saying, “like this , Lola?”— my reply,” Yah! That’s it.’

Between me and Google, the latter explains better. In the end, my granddaughter and my niece’s soon to be husband won . They both split the pot.

We were only supposed to have prime rib and lamb for dinner, but someone ordered a lechon belly who almost forgot to pick it up. We had that too.

After the game, we started exchanging our gifts. As wrappers were torn to reveal the contents, people were just moving about with presents in tow, “this is for you,” “Merry Christmas’, and “Thank yous” were heard all over the place.

Shrieks of surprise, Christmas music, and bursts of laughter were abound. We didn’t wait for midnight anymore because, my sister-in-law with her family had to drive back to New Jersey, and this was in the height of the NY storm.

The next day was the New Jersey late lunch at my sister-in-law’s Summit residence. Except for a few, it was still just us family. The best thing about Summit is that I also acquired myself a second family.

My families in Summit

Christmas day just went so fast with lots of love, laughter and reminiscing around. Soon, covid19 will be a thing of the past and we can start travelling again – so our conversation goes.

A niece is getting married in the summer, so we talked about courtship and dates. My sister- in-law narrated about a suitor who got turned down and he ended up crying and watched himself cry in the mirror. That was hilarious. I didn’t know that men cried in front of mirrors when they got rejected.

We didn’t play poker, but we played a money game which I learned from my sister. It was picking the $20 dollar from a pack of ones, while blindfolded. Whatever they took in the end, they could keep it. Would you believe – none of the players took any money? They just returned it every time they won.

I guess it wasn’t about the money but the spirit of the game of chance, just like our poker one.