230. I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things, I just want everything or more than everything for my family
December 28th, 2009 § 13 Comments
My birthday falls on Christmas and when I was younger, my parents would host epic birthday parties for me and all of my family friends, who were all Chinese and didn’t celebrate Christmas either, and everyone would give me extra gifts because everyone thought that someone was bound to gyp me and only give me one gift for Christmas and my birthday, but everyone was nice, and I always ended up with extra gifts. My upstairs neighbor gave me four gifts one year. I still remember what they were: a pair of gloves, a doll, a walkman (that I broke 4 hours later) with a Debbie Gibson tape, and a Nintendo Gameboy that I played to death on all of our long family road trips. One year, I posed with all of my presents and they cocooned me like I was an ant in an anthill, and another year I had six laundry baskets full of gifts. I was pretty greedy for a while. The best part of my birthday was the food. My dad made two gallons of hot and sour soup the year I turned seven, and I ended up drinking 10 bowls of it over the course of the night.
My friends and I always hid in various closets in my house while the adults drank and told raunchy jokes. We were terrified that our parents would suddenly remember our existence and coerce us into performing for them (we all knew how to play at least one instrument and nothing pleased our mothers more than when we played scratchy violin and off-key piano in front of everyone.)
The year I turned nine, my brother was born. So we share the same Christmas birthday, and it turns out we’re pretty similar too. I’m real smiling at his fake-smiling in this photo.
My brother & I. He’s in an 826NYC t-shirt I gave him & I’m wearing this Stella McCartney for H&M bathrobe, I mean dress.
(Christmas Eve hotpot (pot not pictured))
We don’t have big parties anymore (neither my brother nor I want them) but we still feast pretty hard. On Christmas Eve, we had hot pot with a gazillion things including watercress, beef tripe, special fish balls, enoki mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, and um, everything you see in the photo! Our dipping sauce consisted of:raw egg, satay sauce, shrimp sauce, sesame oil, chili sauce, hot sauce, preserved beancurd, and soy sauce. We all exploded afterward and re-pieced each other together bit by bit in the days that followed. Should I mention that the day before, my family went to my mom’s Christmas Party at this place, Harvest Buffet, and let’s just say I had eight full plates of food, not including bowls of soup, ice cream and dessert. Also, I should mention that I wore a bib for just about every meal?
My dad’s pretty amazing. He works ten to twelve hours a day plus a four hour commute, and he takes care of my mom and my brother and me, and he takes care of our beautiful house and he still has time to make dinners that include at least four of the following:stir-fried lobster in scallion and ginger, steamed whole fish, bone and radish soup, black bean Cantonese dim sum style mini pork chops, four different kinds of Chinese sprouts, Chinese eggplant with pork and garlic, cold seasoned wood ear mushrooms, and on and on.
My dad’s cookin. (First two photos taken by my cousin. Bad photo taken by me.)
Also, I should mention that I love my family, and here we are, dorky and smiley and eager to finish taking photos so we can eat.
Mom: 80′s leather heart belt & Burberry wool skirt; me: Rodarte for Target, gulp! (Photo by my cousin!)
I was wearing a heart belt too, but took it off in anticipation of gorge-fest. I’d be happy to know if your hearts are also swelling with love?
Love, Jenny
ahh your hotpot looks delicious as well as the meal your dad cooked. i had a hotpot too the day after christmas and i was so full my stomach almost burst
you and your family are adorable (and i’m so jealous you got a hold of the blue rodarte for target dress!)
It looks bad on me! I don’t care or maybe I do & I should return it.
OMG! Convince your dad to adopt me, ok? I’m drooling on my keyboard and you guys are super-cute.
Ha ha! I wish I could share his food with everyone.
Omigosh, your dad sound pretty fantastic. Look at that food! My heart swells for my family around these times. We’re pretty close knit to begin with, but there is always that holiday warmth that surrounds us at this time of year. We do the whole Christmas Eve thing as well and on Christmas Day, we all disperse. Dad watches sports, brothers go off with their families and mom and I go see a movie.
Ah! It must be so different when your siblings are all grown up with their own families. I always feel lucky seeing my family because I don’t get to come home very often, but when I do, I always stay for a super long time and feel happy. What movie did you see this year?
my birthday falls on December 1st and family still try to get away on giving me one present!! haha. I’d love to be at your birthday party, look at all this food! you make me hungry!! yum!
Fab, darling, you should be getting five times the presents from your family! My family is lazy now too and they get exactly what I tell them to get me, which often is nothing!! (And then I have to rack my brain to figure out something I want.)
Hope you and your brother had happy birthdays! Aren’t cooking dads the best? Your birthday dinner looks just amazing.
Yes! Cooking dads are the best ever. I wish I had his natural cooking talents.
OMG. Your family is so cute. Ah, that hot pot reminds me of so many good things. So much better than turkey and stuffing imho. My dad does the cooking too!
Linked your photo on my blog here for a Rodarte post, I hope that is okay.
Eyeliah
yum yum. looks delicious!