One of the Christmas traditions that marked a happy note on my heart is having the family gather together during the noche buena or midnight dinner on Christnas eve. It doesn't matter if it's just simple preparations, being with the family during the noche buena makes every Christmas more meaningful and special for me. It's a tradition passed on to me by my family and now I will pass this to my own family.
We planned to prepare at least three main dishes, that is pork humba, pork barbecue and spaghetti. But something came up that made us decide to just go for pork humba and spaghetti. My friend @labanez's little girl celebrated her birthday on December 24 and because of that, they gave us a portions of food they prepared for the birthday. This usually happens when a neighbor or a friend has a simple celebration with their family. They would prepare a little more to share their food to the neighbors which I find really heartwarming. And for that I wanna say thank you labanez.
These are the food shared to us by labanez. From the left corner clockwise, we have bibingka, lechon belly, chicken (not sure what recipe is this) and on the center is lumpia.
Having these before noche buena, the husband and I agreed that this were enough for us and just go for the pork humba and spaghetti.
My husband was the one in charge of cooking the pork humba. I must admit he is better in cooking more complicated recipes, which I am so thankful. He also prepared the fruit salad which I intended to prepaee myself. Can't blame him though, it's his favorite. While he cooked, I was asleep with the kids. 😅 Am I bad?, lol! Well, we agreed to divide the task. After he cooked the pork humba and prepared the fruit salad, at around 10 pm, he woke me up so I could cook spaghetti. 
I also wrapped gifts for the kids while they were asleep as to surprise them. They did not expect we had gifts prepared for them. I placed it under our little christmas tree. 
Then I prepared the table and got ready for the noche buena.
It's noche buena time! We took a family photo as memorabilia for this year's Christmas celebration. We were not complete though in this photo. The others were enjoying their good night sleep. 
We said a prayer of thanks to God before partaking the food and afterwards enjoyed the night with some christmas songs. We also opened some of the gifts. 
On Christmas Day, we continued the celebration when we visited our parents. We also brought some christmas presents for the kids' cousins.
We were reunited with the whole family, that is my siblings, brother-in-laws with my kids and theirs. It was chaotic in a good, fun and memorable way.
The kids were very eager to open their christmas gifts and were very happy with all the toys and candies they received. It was a pleasant sight seeing them with precious smiles and giggles.
With the family together, we shared a christmas meal. Some of the food were brought by my sister for this gathering like the lumpia. It was fun catching up with the family over a meal. 
Everyone was full and was so ready to take on the microphone for a karaoke session. If you want to sing your favorite song just look for the code in the songbook and have it lined up for your turn. Karaoke makes any family get together more fun.
We spent the rest of the day with the family. It was a fun and heartwarming Christmas which we will cherish for the rest of our days. Christmas Day is never the same without the family. And for that I thank God for keeping us together.
Merry Christmas everybody!
