  Happy Thanksgiving, first and foremost. There are many things I am grateful for, and there is not enough space to list them, but: Thank God for my family, and the practical, regretless way we dismantle each home and set up anew. With them, I have learned how to accept what cannot be changed with dignity and humor; how to peel back mundanity and routine to find the extraordinary, the breathtaking, the quirky; how to live in the now , and to take responsibility for what I have chosen, and not to waste my time regretting might-have-beens. Thank God for my country, such as it is - for teaching me how to give; for forcing me to look past preconceived notions of love and patriotism and citizenship, and redefining them; for reminding me that art and music and culture are ways of reinventing what cannot be accepted, of rebelling without destroying.
Thank God for the people I love, have loved and fallen in love with, and the things they have taught me - that it is alright to cry, and make mistakes; the quirks and oddities of Philippine culture, which I would have never learned otherwise; how to negotiate the gap between who you are and who another person is, and how enjoyable that process can be. Thank God for sparkly things and dark red silk-covered pillows, because they are as balm to a soul that has been rubbed raw by life in general, and ugly floral prints in particular.
Most of all, thank God for my sense of humor and for the people who tolerate (and instigate) it, because without it I would be another statistic, another quitter. Of course I'm thankful for things such as food and education and a roof over my head as well, but these things are the cake. I give thanks daily for my cake; I am fortunate enough to be able to save my gratitude over the icing and the sugar flowers for Thanksgiving.
So I do. Now, as for Christmas: I was thinking of writing a short story as a present for my friends, and have been brainstorming ever since. However, I do not know whether this would be a good gift, or whether it is simply self-serving (i.e., the inflicting of my torturous prose on a captive audience). In any case, I have a few more weeks to think about it, and if there are any helpful suggestions, I'm open. 
