Spending time with people you love before the year ends is one of the greatest and most unforgettable moments of our lives. These include your family, friends, or loved ones. The dinner table during new year’s eve may be empty of food, but if we are with our families it can still be considered as a precious moment. You may have all the wealth in the world but if you don't have people you care about, it may all be useless. Happiness can be found in the company of friends, family, loved ones, and all those you care about.
I wish to share the happy moments that I experienced during our New Year’s celebration for 2012. I hope everyone was as happy as I was.
December 31 is very important for me because it is the time when I get to meet my relatives, like my aunts, uncles and cousins. My cousins and I meet very rarely because we all live quite a distance from each other. On the rare occasions that we do meet, often we all had changed much, maybe physically, maybe in our attitudes or in our personality. After all, we normlly only get to meet once a year.
Last December 31, 2012 we had our annual family reunion. My mother woke up very early to prepare our breakfast, which we gratefully ate at around 8 o’clock.
After our wonderful meal, everyone in the family made the necessary preparations and by 10 o’clock everybody was ready for the trip.
My father was done getting the car ready. We were a large family, so we decided to use the car instead of commuting to my aunt’s place in Quezon City.
Along our way, we encountered heavy traffic. My sister was about to quit and go back home because she was so bored that time. I think we spent more time in traffic than on our trip. After we survived the traffic going out to San Jose del Monte City, we encountered yet another one at Commonwealth. Everybody was so hungry, tired and bored.
We reached the venue around 1 o’clock. When we arrived there, our cousin offered us food. We were supposed to help them fix the place and prepare the food, but since we came very late, the food was already cooked and the venue was already set.
Some of my cousins were already at the venue and some of them came a little later. After we had eaten, a long chat followed. Greetings and picture-taking commenced. Then my uncle, who was a pastor, held a short fellowship as a thanksgiving for our family togetherness and for being blessed with another year. It was also the birthday of one of my aunt who was the owner of the house where we had our reunion. My uncle served as the host of that gathering.
After the fellowship, a short introduction of ourselves followed to break the ice from the long period of time of not seeing each other.
We had a lot of fun introducing ourselves. We talked about the many things that happened in our lives throughout the year, like all about each other's love life, work, business, health, and the most enjoyable part was when we talked about the history of our family. My mother and her siblings talked about their lives when they our young, including their parents, our grandparents who had already passed away. We learned a lot from them reminiscing about the past. Funny things we uncovered, and we laughed and screamed a lot. That was a really unforgettable moment for me.
After the long chat and greetings, my cousins decided to play a game, Pinoy Henyo. We divided ourselves into four groups. We had so much fun playing that game. Everybody enjoyed guessing the word placed on our foreheads. Everybody was so energetic and cooperative. At the end of the game, those who won the game received gift checks and I was one of them who received gift checks as prizes courtesy of our cousin.
Playing the Pinoy Henyo game was tiring but fun and everybody got hungry, so we decided to eat again. While eating, some of my relatives started singing their favorite songs on the karaoke. I think it was another game because there was a competition as to who gets the high score on the screen after singing.
After a long day of chatting, eating and playing, I was enjoying myself and found all of these as momentous and memorable. I really enjoyed that reunion because the previous year I wasn’t able to come.
Around 8 o’clock we left as we were supposed to celebrate new year’s eve at our house. It was actually my second day to celebrate the new year in our house because before we celebrated it at another gathering at my uncle’s house. We usually celebrate the new year with my relatives on my father’s side, but since the family who always conducts a reunion for us wasn’t here in the Philippines. They celebrated their new year abroad but before they left, we had met last Christmas.
When got home about 10 o’clock. My neighbors, who were also my good friends, ended the year laughing and eating together. We watched the beautiful fireworks display in the sky.
The last day of the year really mattered to me, as I ended the year with my family and friends who are very important to me and are about to start a new one.