The Twelfth Day Of Christmas

To Pow Sing for chicken rice both vegetarian and regular.

Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. ~ Isaiah 60:1

Feast Day of St John Neumann, and also St Edward The Confessor, and St Julian The Hospitaller. Not fond of the traditional sweet bread. (The vánočka sort, not the innards of some animal) Other kinds of foods preferred please. I couldn't deal with seeing that many chunks of roast-whatever on the table. Certainly, legs of ham and lamb have also been popular this season. The girlfriend had bothered to fly in two whole legs of Jamón Ibérico de Bellota, and found it a struggle to finish them even with the expected parties. She wryly said, "I had to put together two extra meals, altogether invite 40 people to finish the second leg."

Feasts are the highlight of the Christmas season. They come in all forms, any day, and all share the spirit of Christmas, reminding us that through the joy of food, we remember why we love our friends, and do all that we do. We renew promises to strengthen our faith, and let that guide us in our decisions, along with the heart and to share these blessings. Again, I give thanks for these various groups of friends I hold dear. The ones whom I do not have to schmooze with. These, whom I value for their opinions.

At one such dinner, there're friends on this table that the man and I meet only once a year. Or twice, brought together by mutual friends. Oddly, we welcome it, and am silently grateful that conversation flows across the table, and somehow, over the years, we do kinda like each other, especially after much shared laughter over many topics. We still keep to the tradition of individual gift exchange, and after the first two years of buying silly gifts from the mall, it became a joy to think about what we could get them at the annual party. That made us realized that hey, we know them more than we thought we did.