Ringing in the New Year

 New Year's Eve often brings expectations of a big celebration.  I wasn't sure that I was going to be up to anything this year.  However, I was tired of being sick and staying home over the holidays.  Also, my parents who were under the weather had made it out to a party and I figure if they could do is, so could I.  Raju and I started off with ordering take-out from Sushi-Bar.  After we ate, we got ready and headed out around 9:30p.m.  We went to a bar at Harbord and Ossington that his friends had taken over for the night.
We were one of the first to arrive so at least we got a spot in a booth.  Slowly others started to trickle in and by midnight there was quite a crowd.  Raju was good and said that anytime after midnight we could leave if I wasn't feeling well.  We managed to stay out until 2:30a.m.  I realized that I don't go dancing with Raju often, so it was nice to get on the dance floor with him.  At midnight I managed to get through to my parents and sisters to wish them a Happy New Year!  Normally it is difficult as the phone lines are often all tied up and busy.
On New Year's Day we have a tradition of meeting up with the Rayman side of the family.  This is one of my favourite times.  We were trying to figure out how long this has been going on.  I don't know if anyone actually calculated it out.  It originally started at my Uncle Derek and Auntie Julie's house, where we would go and play games and hang out and then when Auntie Julie passed away in 1993, my Auntie Hazel and Uncle Sherif took on the honors (a few years we've had it others' houses).  As we got older the cousins decided that instead of buying gifts for everyone we would do a gift exchange instead and then as kids started to enter the picture a gift exchange was set up for them as well.  This year a new tradition (for the kids) started as well.  When my Dad and his brothers were little, the would go to a house called the Big House down the road from where they lived and they had a coin toss.  My Dad introduced us to this when we were little at Eid time.  Uncle Sherif introduced to all the little kids yesterday.  They also made it fair by starting of a few rounds with just the little ones and then adding in the older kids.  Winner of the most coins got to eat first. It was great fun!
After dinner we hung out and chatted, did our gift exchanges and then played another game to decide who got to eat dessert first.  We had to make as many words out of the letter in "Merry Christmas" as possible.  I thought our team was quite clever to look it up on someone's blackberry but we were told that was cheating, so we didn't win.

Cake Balls

I contributed to dessert by making zucchini cakelets and cake balls.  About a month ago I bought a book called cake-pops by Bakerella.  It teaches you how to make these.  I am starting easy with the cake balls and then working my way into shaping them and putting them onto sticks to make them  cake-pops.  I had made them for work a few weeks ago too and both times they have been a big hit.  My cousin Dale says we wants me to make these for him for his birthday (May 14th) and his wife would like some too.  Fortunately her birthday is 2 days later (May 16th) so I could make one batch for the both of them.
With the New Year I don't make resolutions, but it's a good time to get back on the healthy train, of which I have fallen off in the past little while.  It's back to incorporating vegetables to my meals and cutting back on the breads and sugars.  I also need to start exercising again.  I suppose today will be as good a day as any to do that.