december is going to be one busy month.
december 1: cambridge systematics holiday party. we started the month off with aaron's company holiday christmas party. not too shabby. it was held at the mit museum, which is pretty much your typical gallery space, but with a lot more science, instead of art. great photography pieces though. i'll admit i didn't actually take the time to walk around and really look at the exhibit, but the panoramic images all over the place of mountain ranges and whatnot were pretty cool. food was awesome. drinks were free-flowing. people were nice. fun times were had. finally got to meet the person who helped everyone connect the dots to realizing there were, in fact, two camsys/cube 3 couples in existence. still weird.
december 3: transition workload over to new malls project. deadline forthcoming.
december 7: work deadline for a student housing project in minnesota, mn.
december 7 - 9: yet another whirlwind adventure in post-sandy ny with the j-twin. likely with some christmas shopping in the mix.
december 8: get-together at the ktoad's new digs. unfortunately, won't be able to make this one due to previously mentioned whirlwind adventure.
december 8 - 15: hannukah celebrations with the magics.
december 9: hannukah/housewarming party at danny + becca's place. hopefully, i can make it back for this one.
december 13: 8pm showing of the slutcracker at the somerville theater with corey + gail.
december 14: 8:30pm showing of THE HOBBIT at the boston commons!!! i'm excited. can you tell?
december 15: 6:30pm cube 3 studio casino holiday party! time for my company's holiday party at one of the partners' house up in nh. and let me tell you, it is niiiiice. also super excited for this one. on the same night, at 8pm, is the oldenburg glögg party. glögg is apparently a mulled wine concoction that you set on fire before drinking it. also excited. hope we can make it after the cube 3 casino party.
december 20: get on a plane back to hong kong for christmas and new years!!! absolutely can't wait for all the delicious nommage that's going to be happening over those two weeks. it'll totally be worth emptying out all of my vacation time for this one trip. :) plus, it'll be aaron's first trip to hk. again, excited. :D
december 22: big kwan family gathering #1 in celebration of winter festival. jess also lands in hk this evening to join in the festivities.
december 25: big kwan family gathering #2 in celebration of christmas and grandma kwan's birthday! also, 2pm showing of the nutcracker performed by the hong kong ballet. this show has always been a holiday tradition. while everyone else shops and then congregates for pre-dinner mahjong, jess, mom and i sneak away for the nutcracker. but this year, aaron will be joining in the sneaking. and we're apparently in for quite a different show this year. the show has been revamped and redesigned to what looks like a darker telling of the story, so that'll be an interesting change to watch.
december 31: (likely) big kwan family gathering #3 for the new years countdown. new years in hk can get a little crazy every year (anyone remember the super riot in lan kwai fong that one year that got a bunch of people killed? yea. i don't want that...), so it's probably safer to celebrate and welcome the new year from the safety of our own home.
of course, there will be extra little shenanigans intermingled with those plans, but those are the big things that have been planned out in advance. then, that's it for the rest of 2012! and then...onward to new shenanigans in 2013!!!
such as:
january 5: jess, aaron and i hop back stateside and back to our lives and jobs and deadlines. le sigh...
january 11 - 13: aaron and i head back out to madison, wi for red eye! yay seeing more friends for more overnight ultimate shenanigans!!!
who has two thumbs and is excited? this moi. :)
