The holidays tend to be hard on me, emotionally. And since my brother passed on and is no longer a part of these family events they only got harder. I have a tendency to be very negative and bitchy in the weeks preceding these holidays. I try to be happy, though. I try to be happy.

Anyway, my mom buys a lot of food for these occasions. We do a thing called ‘gourmetten’ though I guess it is basically just steel plate grilling. Whatever you wanna call it, it is very tasty and I tend to eat quite a bit. Especially for me!

After dinner it is also tradition to play some Trivial Pursuit. My dad is really good at that because he knows a lot of things about a big range of topics. Me on the other hand only know a lot about certain topics and practically nothing about topics such as sport and politics. Amazingly enough though, I won! :D

See, besides the usual cheese, lunch meats, jams and such, we also love to put sweet stuff on bread. This includes chocolate sprinkles, multi fruit sprinkles, aniseed sprinkles, stamped mice (crushed aniseed), and my all time favorite: chocolate flakes.

While I was in the US I had the hardest time finding it, or even explaining it to people. The few times I found it, it was merely in a tiny jar meant for cake decoration only. It also tasted horrid.

The chocolate flakes from Choca Works are my all time favorite and I have eaten them almost daily for nearly 3 decades. They are just that good! :d

She quickly found out she got more than she anticipated though, after a day or two there were already about 20 people on ‘the list’ wanting to go. :D She mailed everyone again, thanking them for the huge response and added that it might be nice to go to a nearby restaurant afterward to celebrate her mom’s 60th birthday as well, as those 2 birthdays are close together. That way they’d both have a decent birthday party. :)

This was all hush-hush though, no one was to let either of them know this was planned. It was all gonna be a big surprise! Luckily that worked out as planned and when the day arrived there were over 40 people there! Quite a lot more than she expected when she first wrote that email.

We had to be there around 6:30pm and meet up in the big hal of the polyclinic located in the hospital. When we arrived there were already a lot of people. There were so many people that even the big huge table there wasn’t enough to seat everyone. We had to add a few tables. :P

I ate cake and met a lot of family for the first time since I became Julie. I was a bit nervous about that. It took me forever to decide what to wear! I must’ve tried like a dozen shirts before I finally settled for my white army girl t shirt that I love. Thing is that I didn’t wanna overdo the girl part for what is a first time meeting for a lot of them. (so no miniskirts and fishnet stockings, lol!) What was probably even more fun is that I got to kiss everyone now! :D Woot! I wasn’t sure if everyone was gonna be ok with that but I was pleasantly surprised. :)

Naturally some people are still a little confused by it all but I’m sure that most of them realized by now that this is hardly a ‘phase’ I’m going through. I’ve been full-time for about 9 months now and I don’t go around looking like a construction worker in drag either. I do my best to look good and I am noticeably a lot happier now than I’ve ever been before. That is certainly one of the most important things, right? :)

Anyway, we stuck around at the hospital for my uncle’s birthday for a while, he was very touched by it all; that so many people showed up just for him. He doesn’t always realize how special he is to the family but he is. When my grandmother died he became the oldest member of the family, the one everyone looked at.

At like 8:30 we were supposed to head over to the restaurant, a Chinese/Japanese wok restaurant of all things. I’ve never really wokked in my life so that was new to me. This is where my aunt’s birthday was gonna be celebrated, before this point she still had no idea, she thought she was gonna go home with her immediate family and have dinner there. So this was a big surprise for her! :D

It was set up so we’d all pay a fixed amount and then it would simply be all-inclusive. We could eat and drink ’til we dropped or until the kitchen closes, lol. They had a lot of stuff, even a sushi bar! I didn’t try that though, I don’t do very well with raw meats, especially fish. :P I did try a few new things I had never eaten before, I even ate some squid! :D I had to do something to make Sha proud cuz she couldn’t be there. It was very chewy and lacking of flavour to be honest. :P I also had some Chinese bami and a variety of other meats and veggies. It was all very good. :)

Both surprise parties were a huge success and everyone had a lot of fun. :) Here’s a few pics of me there so I finally fulfill my promise of adding more pictures. :P

So anyway, I got the awesome parmesan oregano bread, full size, toasted, with cheese, chicken teriyaki and lettuce. No oils or sauces, I don’t really like any. It was really good. So good, in fact, that after I ate a whole one of those I got another half one shortly after. Oooh, and Mt. Dew too! :)

Afterward we strolled around the city for a while, not all stores were open but most of the major ones were. We went to the V&D first, as the kid wanted to look for some socks and Sha needed a sports bra for her then upcoming surgery, from which she has just been released from the hospital!

Then on another floor we looked at some (cheap) jewelry (from SIX) and I ‘snatched’ a few things I needed. I finally found a good bracelet; a gold chain with black strap embedded inside of it. Sha handed me another one later that was silvery white. I always have trouble looking for some as I have very small arms/wrists. :)

I also found black and red earrings; dangly ones that I think will go well with a few of my shirts. A purple Y shaped necklace, because I have a lot of purple shirts ‘n stuff, and also a purple flowery bracelet.

Prices from left to right: €4,95 – €6,95 – €3,95 – €6,95 – €4,95

Now I’m still looking for a black or black/red necklace and bracelet, purple earrings and bracelet, a white necklace and earrings, and.. well.. I just like having lots of jewelry. :) Oh and I’m still looking for a small and thin gold watch. I’ve seen a few but I’m still looking.

Dad payed for my jewelry, for which I am ever so grateful, but the shopping spree wasn’t over yet.. We went into a shoe store where we all looked at high boots. I’ve been looking for some for a while now, I have thin legs but I like tight boots so it’s tough sometimes.

In the end all three of us found new boots and again dad was feeling really generous today and payed for all of them. That must’ve hurt his wallet a little. They are really awesome boots though! A perfect fit! :)

This in turn all lead to, like, me being asleep at daytime when I’m supposed to be out for an appointment, being awake in the middle of the night just staring at my computer screen, and I was very prone to ‘sugar crashes’ which hit me often like half an hour or so after I ate. My body would just shutdown and force me to sleep. I didn’t eat very well, and when I did it was mainly fast food or other sugary stuffs so all this had to change, and soon.

I’ve done that for many years and it’s hard breaking that but I’m making good progress. I mainly sleep between midnight and 7am-8am now and have a healthy fruit drinky thing (Vie) when I wake up, then I have lunch at like, lunchtime (gasp!), then dinner around 6pm. It almost sounds normal! :P

Anyway, I’m trying to keep this up which is going a lot easier than I thought it would and I find myself with a lot more time during the day. the added benefit of knowing exactly which hours I’m available (read: awake) helps too. :P