Our daughter's dance troupe recently held the annual Christmas party and gift exchange (Secret Santa for the kids and White Elephant for the adults)...
Like last year, there was a lot of fried food (not so good for you). You can see two traysof noodles as well as some fried thing. I say 'thing' because I wasn't really sure what it was. It looked like it was a deep fried sushi roll. It was kind of rock hard and didn't taste too good to me. The noodles were much better. There was also a tray of sushi that was gone in sixty seconds. By the time we got to it, there was only ten pieces left so it wasn't worth it to take a photo of that.
Someone brought in pancit bihon. There you see the wings and noodles again. Whoever brought in the wings must not have ordered it from Mandarin. It wasn't as good and it didn't have as much fried garlic, green onions and spicy red peppers on it.
This was a huge tray of nachos topped with ground beef, red pepeprs, green onions, and yes, CHEESE. This was a bit hard to get because there wasn't a big enough serving utensil. Kinda messy. I ended up putting a fork and spoon in it.
Chickn Katsu (the unpictured tonkatsu sauce was on the side)...
We brought in the grapes and slices mangos (Costco)...I think this was the healthiest food at the party!
Another family brought in Arroz Caldo. The chicken pieces were mixed and were cut up. The tiny red threads you see are saffron. On the side (not pictured) were chopped hard boiled eggs, garlic, and chopped green onions as toppings for the arroz caldo. This is one of my favorite comfort foods. The cook also used thin slivers of ginger. When I make mine, I cut my ginger into "coins". It's not meant to be "eaten" but used as flavor.
My cousin's wife brought in Smoked Fish (pompano) with tomatoes. The fish was really flavorful and I'm excited that she's going to bring it for New Year's Day lunch at my parents.
Someone came in later during the party with a huge tray of Garlic Fried Shrimp. Not pictured was a ginormous tray of fried rice as well as a variety of store bought desserts for the kids (cookies mostly). I normally like this shrimp but I didn't want to touch the shells and get my fingers dirty.
This was Filipino spaghetti - the sauce is sweeter than normal and there are cut up hot dogs in there.
Now on to the desserts. One of the moms brought in Broken Glass Jello. Last year, she brought in Rainbow Cloud Cupcake...Next to the jello was Kutsinta (made by one of the grandmas). I didn't recognized it at first because the Kutsinta my mom makes is round. This was cut into strips and already had the coconut sprinkled on top.
Here's another look at the jello dessert. This was the major hit of the night with the kids (and adults)!
My plate (hangs head in shame)
Brownies...
Oooh, someone brought in sour mango and bagoong (salty fermented shrimp paste). This is a traditional Favorite (not for me). A lot of the older generation really like this. It's that mix of sweet and sour and funky saltiness!
Gifts for the white elephant exchange.
I wish I got this one. The adults were so excited over these types of gifts: the Tabletop Griddle, a Crock Pot, a Foot Massage Spa, and a Deep Fryer. Those were the good ones. The ones that people didn't really like were the microwaveable egg maker (ugh), a hideous cookie jar shapped like a basket filled with apples (Bert got that one and it looks like we will "regift" it next year, heh heh), an ugly sweater (given by us a prank, to be seen in my next post), Victoria's secret perfumes, candies, and a Costco package of Top Ramen noodles. There's more but I can't remember them all...
My cousin's wife originally had the tabletop griddle but it was "stolen" (a gift can be "stolen" away at least twice but not by the same person). She ended up with this, the George Forman grill! And it came with MEAT!!!! Ha ha! The meat was in the freezer and the gift-giver had to run and get it so she could open it at the same time! Yeah, grill that pork chop!
PASACAT Christmas parties from the past:
2010
2008
2007
I'm so glad I'm finally on vacation! I have time to relax and also crank out these posts! The holidays are here!
2 comments:
OMG look at all that wonderful food! Those are some pretty nice white elephant gifts. I still remember one we attended years (and years) ago where someone got a pair of petrified bear dung made into squirrels. I shat you not.
hi c - when i think of white elephant, i mostly think of crap that people want to get rid of. some of those appliances were brand new! so those gift givers were pretty generous. the one who gave away that shitty cookie jar on the other hand...
oh yeah, someone also gave away a dirt devil! ooh, i need that for my car, ha ha.
gross, petrified bear dung? squirrel shaped even?
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