Okay, things to talk about in this post mostly have to do with Christmas. Our Expat Community here in Calbayog likes to help the locals during the year, but especially during Christmas.
On Friday, 19 December, some of us expats went to the local SPED center (Special Education) to give out presents. One of the expats, along with his wife, dressed up as Santa and Mrs. Claus. The children went wild. One little boy would not even leave Santa’s side as he sat there giving out presents and getting their photo taken. The children had a couple of little shows for us. Although I have no idea what they were saying, it was nice to see so many of them happy to be doing it. My job was to hand the correct gender toy to Mrs. Claus.
On Sunday, 21 December, the same group of expats, plus the staff of Mango Lounge, went to one of the poorer barangays (village) in the area. I don’t know how Christian found this barangay. It was pretty far out there. Anyway, we brought more toys and prepared lots of food. Well, the Mango staff prepared (and served) the food. Of course, Santa and his sexy Mrs. Claus were there to hand out presents and take more pictures. This time I didn’t have to do much, except carry some boxes, smile and keep out of the way. Just having us there made them happy and there were lots of smiles.
On Tuesday, 23 December was the Mango staff and resident (he has AirBnB) Christmas party. Although, I don’t work at Mango, or live there, I was invited. They had a children’s party during the day and the adult’s party at night. With the games played, it was a good thing to separate the two. I did not go to the children’s party. I just don’t like being around so many kids at one time. At the adult party they had a couple of contests. One was dressing in drag and the other was a banana eating contest. Men only for the drag and women only for the banana eating. Let’s just say the the banana placement was what made this an adult’s only party.
Enough about Christmas now. This coming year I have a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. Yeah, I know, I’ve had it before, I get started and something happens that makes me stop shortly there after. Right now though I feel optimistic and hope I go through with it. I’ve got help, at least they said they would help. I always do better if I have someone to do things with me, unless it’s really, really something I like doing. My goal is to lose 50 kg (110 pounds) this year. That’s about 2.12 pounds per week. Only .3 pounds per day. Right now 5 January 2026 is my official start date. I’ll try to keep y’all up to date.
I’m still waiting on the doctor from Cebu to let me know of a good place to buy the socks I will need to wear. They are hip socks (so basically stockings) XXXL and (I believe) 20-30 mmhg. I think I found some on Amazon that are the right ones, so I sent him a link a couple of days ago. Well, I sent the link to his secretary and she will check with him. I may have to wear these things for the rest of my life. Although, my doctor here in Calbayog says that if I lose the excess weight, I would solve all my problems (high blood pressure, gout and the leg). Hopefully he is right and at the least it’s motivation to get started and continue with exercising.
Okay, I’m dozing off here. I better get in there and take a nap. Hopefully I will be posting again next week or at least close to that. My birthday is in less than a month, so I’ll probably at least be posting around that time.
Salamat Y’all
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