My Family and Non-Traditional Thanksgiving

My family's homes are spread all over Southwestern Ontario. We don't get to see each other very often, but when we do see each other our get together always revolves around food, family and laughter.

This year, we had Thanksgiving brunch at Woo Buffet Yonge & Dundas Square. Top floor of the AMC Theatres. It's our first time there, but my mom has taken her IBM colleagues there before for team building activities.

It is part lounge, part Mandarin. Pretty cool. Food so-so. But it was mostly about getting together and not having to cook or cleanup after.

My two most favourite small people in the world (my nieces Lulu and Olivia) are always a hoot. Here they are in various poses:

Enjoying shiu mai:

Lulu & Oh-livia

Mmm...shiu mai

Lulu Belly

I started eating meat again, here is what I ate:

Sushi and fishy

Chicken wings et al

I forgot about Olivia being bored of shiu mai:

Hurry up auntie

My family is a real-life Benetton ad, as you can see from the various nationalities:

T is half Jamaican, half Filipino (I'm a mestiza). Lulu and Olivia are half Ecuadorian, half Filipino.

T, Oh-livia, Lulu

My husband Greg, is Irish and something else

Greggy & Oh-livia

My sisters and I are Filipino mestizas. My sister Karla's husband is from Ecuador. My sister Aisha's partner is Irish.

T and Lulu

T was Lulu's age, not too long ago

Kendall is my daughter T's boyfriend. Not sure what his background is yet, but I will ask.

Freddie is Irish (I think?). And my youngest sister, I always told her we found her in the Rain Forest on account of her indigenous features (I am probably making her mad as hell right now).  Just kidding K!

We are a clan of 11, and Karla's expecting a baby boy in December. Our family is very female dominant, even our cats are females (except for Tommy, our orange tabby, RIP and we'll love you forever and the new addition to the De Marzo - Crespo clan, Tank - here looking very tired with Olivia):

Tank!

We are not sure what we're going to do with a baby boy??? Exciting times... maybe his uncles can bore him with football and ultimate fighting.

Anyway... the brand new baby Boy coming soon will make us a very Brady clan of 12!