Christmas feasting, toys and movies

This past Christmas was spent in Silicon Valley with Neve and Mason and the rest of the Cheng clan. It was a nice relaxing visit, with a LOT of eating. There was the big family feast on Christmas eve where, among lots of other foods, I was introduced to guava cake from Aki bakery in San Jose. Apparently it's famous locally, and I can certainly see why. Neve and Mason must have been VERY good this year because Santa brought them a bunch of cool toys. The GloDoodle was one they kept picking up (as did I!) to draw and erase (the erasing seemed to be part of the fun).

More feasting happened on Christmas day with an informal brunch for whichever family members wanted to stop by. In the evening, we visited the Barty's for a lovely English Christmas dinner. The meal was turkey, roast potatoes, apple pie, christmas pudding and custard from a can (delicious on pie!) and we were all quite stuffed at the end.

The following day Mei and I made a brief stop at Stanford mall, braved traffic and parking, left quickly. That was the extent of the Boxing day shopping. In the evening, Stephen made roast beef and more roast potatoes (can't really get too much of those) along with some delicious trifle from Sarah Barty.

I vowed to have leftovers for the rest of the week! I saw two movies over the holiday, both highly recommended. "Up in the air" was excellent, some great acting by the three leads (George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick). The ending was quite unexpected. "Sherlock Holmes" was very entertaining. Lots of fun banter between Holmes and Watson, they reminded me of House and Wilson, which is ironic and a little circular! Great action, a very Holmesian story (about cults and the supernatural and stuff). They definitely set this up for a sequel.

The year is about to turn and it's hard to believe 2009 has passed.