Christmas Craft: Build Your Own Gingerbread House

What's your favorite Christmas tradition? Mine is setting up our Christmas Tree; hanging balls, ribbons and colorful blinking lights while holiday songs fill the air. It's my favorite childhood Christmas memory! The gifts under it and in my Christmas stocking were just an icing on the cake! :) This year, since I am away from home (again!), I couldn't build and decorate our artificial tree, but I got to experience another Christmas tradition for the first time! I built my own gingerbread house! 

In Europe, it has been a tradition for families to build a gingerbread house days before Christmas. It is a Christmas decoration made by children using hard gingerbread as the house's walls and roof, white sugar icing as the snow, and variety of candies to make it just like the witch's house in the novel "Hansel and Gretel".

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Lunch at Bacolod Chk-n-BBQ House

A lot of Filipino restaurants in Dubai have chicken inasal on their menu, but nothing comes close to the authentic. I can honestly say that my expectations are very high when it comes to this native dish, most probably because I grew up having inasal on my plate almost every other weekend! For us Negrenses living abroad, chicken inasal is a comfort food. It reminds us of home. That is the reason why I was extremely happy when I discovered that Bacolod Chk-n-BBQ House has recently opened their doors in Karama. Since it carries 'Bacolod' in its name, this newly-opened restaurant brings so much hope and joy to everyone who seek for the "real thing" miles away from home.

While I was patiently waiting for the weekend (and the payday), I followed the restaurant's Facebook and Instagram accounts; drooled on every food photo and shared the craving to my friends. I never thought that the sincere LIKES on Instagram and the simple SHARE on Facebook could make me Bacolod Chk-n-BBQ House's Fan of the Week, and that entitled me to have a dish for free! :) 

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