Doan Chung-Hernandez

It’s that time of year again where it’s become traditionally okay to shovel ungodly amounts of food into our faces all day long. I have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the ridiculous amounts of food but the holidays for me really are more about family than it is about food, foot ball, movies and amazing sales the next day. This year is Ray’s year, meaning that his family gets us for Thanksgiving, lucky them. Our first stop, Uncle David and Aunt Barbara’s. Dad came prepared and wore his loose pants and everything.

Aunt Barbara made boat loads of food and they had already dug in earlier so we helped our selves to a plate. Aunt Barbara and Uncle David stayed in the living room while we sat in the dining room and ate. While consuming my first Thanksgiving meal of the day I couldn’t help but to feel like somewhat of a freeloader. I mean, it’s Thanksgiving day and I hardly see these people and here  we are coming over to eat their food that they slaved countless hours over in their dining room while they watched television in the next room. This is the part of Thanksgiving that always makes me feel so weird and I hate that it’s become the norm, to just go from family to family just to stuff our faces with food. Whatever happened to everyone sitting around the dining room, watching the turkey get it’s first slice and just enjoying every ones company. Ray and I always talk about the younger days, before we were pubescent teens and we were innocent carefree kids, the holidays were so much nicer then. We have such fond memories of everyone getting together under one roof and even though Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t spent under a candle lit dinning table it was spent with everyone. We miss those holidays and the older we get the more we’ve come to realize that if we want traditions like these to live on we need to start them back up again starting with a family of our own.

The next stop was Aunt Dora’s and Uncle Todds. Luckily Uncle Paul was already there with Aunt Minga and their kids so it saved us a stop. Now this is the part of Thanksgiving I could really do without but everyone seems to love, football so I just roll with it. We sat around for the next couple of hours watching football while stuffing our faces. The girls multitask and went through the sales catalogs while watching football. I had no choice but to join them, and holy crap are there some tempting sales going on tomorrow. Now I know why people wake up so early but still I’ve convinced myself that it’s just not worth all the fuss.

Later that night we made a stop over to Berna and Sams house. Berna really out did herself this year. Her green bean casserole was the best I had yet. Ray and Ben are gay iPhone slutts

Sam’s brother was there and he brought his kids.

And after all that we met up with Steven Ray and his lovely wife Nycole for some drinks. I love that Steven always looks so studious every time we see him.

While telling Nycole of all the ridiculous sales I ended up convincing myself that perhaps I should check out some of these sales for myself. So the next morning Ray and I headed to the mall, not as early as some of these other guys but we were there.

The next day we met up with Steven and Nycole again.

What a fun couple.

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We got the call in the morning, Grandpa past away in his sleep last night. I’ve never known neither of my grandpas so Ray’s grandpa was the closest one I had to the real thing. I want to say it was unexpected but only because we expected grandma to go before him. I mean, not too long before they finally decided to put her in an old folks home because her condition had been so taxing on everyone. It was a hard decision but it had to be done. Grandpa past away not too long after she left the house and poor grandma is much too sick to understand so no one told her.

We started the morning off with breakfast with uncle Ray and later paid grandma a visit at the assisted living home she’s staying at. Since she’s been living here she’s shown lots of improvement. She’s a lot less hostel which is awesome because hostel grandmas are no fun.

Think she might have even remembered Ray Daniel, even if it was only for a brief second.

After grandmas visit everyone gathered back at aunt Dora’s.

The next day we met up with our good buddy Steven Ray and his girl Nycole. It’s always so nice to see them.

Check out the sweet tux Nemo got for the funeral.

The day before the funeral Uncle Ray had to be rushed to the hospital.

November 21, 2009 we buried grandpa. It was a really nice funeral. Poor Uncle Ray was still in the emergency room.

After the funeral we all gathered back at Aunt Dora’s. It’s not often we see everyone under the same roof so it was really nice. I think that’s the best part about funerals. Grandpa and grandma would be proud.

I don’t know how we all managed to fit but we did.

Ray and I had to head back home later that night but before we did we wanted to meet up with some of the cousins for a few drinks. Only Nick and Brandi could make it.

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Every year for the holidays Ray and I will switch off. For example, one year we’ll spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his and the following year we’ll spend Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. We timed it perfect to where Bea and Guav end up being in town too because they do the same switcheroo but only with Christmas.

Christmas in Dallas goes for several days and holds many events. Since marrying Ray I’ve seemed to have married into several other families as well and we have to manage our schedule accordingly so that we’re able to fit everyone who’s anyone in. It was the first Christmas in Dallas where Ray didn’t get to spend with his BFF Chris Miller. However we did spontaneously run into them at the Gallery Mall and ended up having lunch with them.

Shane Semmler was in town from Hawaii. Yay! I happen to miss Shane very much and have never met his parents but he use to always speak very highly of them so I was looking forward to meeting them along with the rest of his family. He was in Austin during the time I was in the hospital and paid me a visit then. After several attempts of trying to reach Shane via phone while we were in Dallas we decided to pay him a surprise visit. We got there at the perfect time because as soon as we arrived was the exact moment that they were planning on going out to eat. So of course we joined them and then went back to the Semmler’s home and watched a video his parents put together every year of the family for the family. There was even a photo of Ray and I in the video. Yay, see we are family too! We also played Rock Band where I failed miserably at singing Living On a Prayer by Bon Jovi.

The Semmler’s loved me so much they invited us to join them at what would be my first Mavericks game the very next day. It was so exciting at first, the stadium was so big, lights were flashing, and music so loud with the hot dancers shaking there ass on the court below. Yes, yes Go Mavericks!

I think Shane is a spitting image of his dad.

A little blurry because I was trying to find the right setting on my camera but here is Ray and Shane being a goof ball.

Mavericks fans.

It was a sad game at first, so sad that I was embarrassed to be a Maverick fan but then I remembered that I was at home stadium. Luckily they ended up winning in the end, not by much though, it was a close game.

The next day was the Eve of Christmas and what better day to shop and what better place than Wal*Mart. Yeah, especially when Christmas at the TalPlacido’s was going to be that night. You know I wasn’t the brains of this operation. I have two words, Kuya Ben. Bea and Ray are testing out the bikes Santa’s gonna get for Cloe and Lyric with Ben’s money. Speaking of Santa, Cloe came up to me earlier and said Santa wasn’t real. I asked her who told her that and she said I did when they were down visiting us. I did? Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I? Let this be a lesson to all of you. Think twice before you have Aunt Doe babysit.

This is Chrismas at the TalPlacidos.

Christmas At The TalPlacido’s from Doan Chung on Vimeo.

LEGOS! He was real excited about his present.

Christmas is all about the kids, it was no different here.

Look what Santa got the rug rats.

Look What Santa Got the Lyric and Cloe from Doan Chung on Vimeo.

Even Nyny got a present, and if you look in the background Papa’s got a brand new plasma.

Ny Ny We Got You A Present from Doan Chung on Vimeo.

Me and Bea. Photo by Guav Gauvin.

Christmas day was spent at Aunt Dora and her husband Todd’s home. I was a bit disappointed this year because there was no pineapple cake. I’ve been looking forward to this cake all year long and the maker of the cake happen to be sick. Sheesh, the nerve.

Aunt Dora is truly one of the nicest people I know. Every time I go over to her house she has several presents for me. She’s the type that goes Christmas shopping the day after Christmas and then every other weekend just for presents for the fuck of it so when some one comes over there will be a present for them. Look at how many presents she bought for her brother Ray alone.

Dad’s got a brand new jacket.

Nick’s got brand new money.

Aunt Dora got an angel.

Todd and I are the photographers.

Aunt Dora made sure she had several presents for everyone that arrived. Nick bought his girlfriend and his girlfriend brought her sister and she brought her boyfriend.

Uncle Ray brought his new girlfriend and her son.

Aunt Dora and Todd take time to pose for a photo.

Ray looks handsome wearing a tie.

Grandpa was there too.

The next day we went to Guav’s favorite store in Texas, Fry’s, home of anything and everything electric.

That night Ray and I toilet papered Kuya Ben’s car as payback for the last time he and Bea toilet papered our car on Random Ass Day.

Our first attempt was a failed disaster so we merely drove back to 711, bought some more toilet paper and a gallon of water and just threw wet bombs at his car. The funny thing is, no one cleaned it up the next day and they just drove off with it like that and let the wind blow it off.

Bea and Guav drove back to Austin with us in Ben’s car to help unload the washer and dryers we bought off Kuya Ben and a bunch of random other stuff we got for free. We grabbed dinner at a local Indian Vegetarian place I’ve been meaning to try out. Ray didn’t like it but it’s okay because all the non-eating meat folks did. Ray also got a ticket that night, two actually, because he was driving Kuya Ben’s car which happens to be expired on inspection and registration. The next day we headed back to Dallas ready to celebrate the New Year.

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