So many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving…We had a lovely party last weekend to celebrate the Blue Bloods series being on the bestseller lists for three weeks (both the New York Times and USA Today—oops there I go, brah-ging again, hee). The party was at the super-swanky Peninsula Hotel and lots and lots of our beautiful friends came. I wish I could have invited you all since you guys are the reason we had the party, but it was also nice to just have a personal celebration of the book with the people who know us and have supported us for so long. I’ve had a LOT of book parties in my ten years as a published author, and while those parties are celebratory, they are also…promotional-tory. There’s a lot of selling and inviting the press and giving interviews and at those parties I never get to talk to my friends because, in the end, those parties are fun disguised as work.
I also haven’t had a birthday party in a LONG time because every year I have a book release party (sometimes I would have two book parties a year even) and it seemed too much. On Saturday I wore my new Philip Lim dress, and my open-toe knee-high Marni boots and Mattie wore her Marc Jacobs black tulle dress and matching black velvet coat and Mike wore his brown Helmut Lang blazer and white Prada shirt and skinny Barney’s jeans and we looked pretty glam, if I do say so myself. It was also nice to celebrate with old and NEW friends. I think the most boring thing about parties is seeing the same people all the time, it’s nice to shake it up and also invite new people that you have become close to. We are so lucky in life to have such a great group of family and friends. My nephews were running around while everyone was drinking champagne.
The other day I read on AOL Headline News (you know, it’s my main news source, which is funny since it’s the oddest selection of headlines sometimes. I always know about the 8-year old shootings and which celeb has dumped her cheating hubby), anyway on AOL Headline news there was a story about how happy people don’t watch too much TV. Or that the more TV you watch, the unhappier you probably are. And that people who socialize more, get out a lot, and see their friends, have a much higher happiness index.
Which totally makes sense. When we lived in New York, we were out almost every night of the week. The only TV we’d catch was the 11pm Voyager (I totally got addicted too. Year of Hell anyone?) on weekdays, on weekends, it was usually the 2am showing of Blind Date, which was kind of a fun way to end the evening, making fun of other people’s bad dates while you are comfortably smug with your spouse. But since moving to LA and having a kid we really don’t get out much as much as we used to, and we definitely felt a lot more glum.
It’s important to keep the balance—on the one hand, Mattie really likes having her BOTH her parents home when she goes to sleep. But on the other hand, we would go crazy if we didn’t keep up our social life. When I was younger, my parents went out all the time, they had hugely busy social lives in Manila, always off to the opera or some benefit or a party but when we moved to America, that whole lifestyle ended and they never went out at all. Guess which one I preferred as a child? I remember going to sleep kind of sad when they were out and we were just left at home with the maids. Abandoned!
When I was growing up in Manila we always had brunch at the Peninsula Hotel on Sundays after church. We rotated between the Mandarin and the Peninsula. It was only later, when we were immigrants we would go to the Carl’s Jr. after church that I realized how lucky we were earlier. Now we try to take Mattie to the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel for brunch every Sunday. A total indulgence, but it’s the way I grew up, and hey, it’s not such a bad thing to take things for granted…as long as you are thankful for them later!
Happy Turkey Day everyone!
xoxo
Mel