Tracy Hills Christmas celebrations 2023

I asked the kids to have lunch while I made the first trip to drop the chairs and table at the Tracy Hills club house. Club house parking lot was full, and I could not recognize any of the people who were walking in the parking lot. Did I get the venue wrong? I double checked the whatsapp group, and then called Manu. Manu said that some of the folks had just left the club house after doing the initial decoration setup, and that Anjali is on the way. Meanwhile I had one of the kids from the birthday party next door open the gate for me, and I parked the table and chairs outside the hall. Just as I was about to leave, Anjali reached with her kids, and opened the hall door. I left the furniture inside, and came back again with my kids. 

There were quite a few people in the hall already.  It was 2:45 PM almost. Some more whatsapp reminders, and we had everyone. 

Manu did a quick welcome, and passed on the mike to Prakashettan. Prakashettan did a speech, asking for a moment of silence in the name of everyone currently suffering in wars around the globe.  Cultural programs started soon after. Kids performed their carols enthusiastically for around eight minutes.  Confident and high energy performance.  I sang "Devadaru poothu..".  While there was voice strain in one of the stanzas, I did receive kind words of appreciation. Gireesh sang "O mere dil ke chein.." . Adults' carols were to happen later in the day. It felt like the cultural programs got over too soon. How are we going to fill the rest of the time? 

Enter Bharathi and her games committee.  First, there were a few kids' games, while Prakashettan, Saji and a few folks took up the preparation of tea using the propane burner outside the hall. Tea came out really great. Along with traditional kerala snack items of parippu vada, kerala style cup cake, plum cake, it was a great experience for our nostalgic culinary senses. 

Just as the tea festivity came to an end,  kids' games were over, and it was time for adults' games to take over. Alphabetically split into two teams - team names chosen as "Theepori" and "Kalichal jayikkum". First game was pictionary for malayalam movie names. Both the teams performed very well. The tie was broken by  me guesssing "Nanpakal nerathe mayakkam.." against an apt "z..z.z.." sleeping representation by Anjali. Team "theepori.." had established the edge.

Next game was a very interesting team game with one team member with eyes open guiding rest of the four blindfolded members ( who form a train ) in the team with gestures like tapping on the right arm to turn right, tapping of the left arm to move left, tapping on the back to move forward etc with the end goal of collecting specific team color balloons. I was not initially part of the team, and I came in as substitute for Banerjee as he had some concerns with the blindfold. I had not really been following the rules. Whoever blindfolded me did a good job, and I walked and turned, and passed on the gestures. I was reminded of the green card game that the USCIS makes the H1Bs play. Finally it seems we won the game. "Theepori" team is just too good. 

Enthusiasm dial was in high RPM now. Next game of guessing the malayalam song against english lyrics was very challenging, and ended up in  a tie. Movie name guessing with images projected on the screen was mostly a cakewalk for Vijesh and other raw talent from our teams, except for "Bro Daddy" which we could not crack for no good reason. 

After completing all the game events, on being asked how she was able to run these programs so well even in the middle of production releases at work, Bharathi declared "Once a TPM, always a TPM.."

By then, Manu had brought the "Malabar coast" buffet.  He had also setup food warmers on the tables with the help of Vipin, Mahesh et al.  While the buffet setup was in progress, we had adults' carol. All the practice sessions that we had done paid off and we sang without any noticeable mistakes. 

Porotta beef fry was where the focus was. Vipin and Anju had brought rice in addition to the restaurant food. The food was all great. We were all having a great time. Porotta got over. Priya ( a food committee member) went home and got frozen porotta refill while Saji took the responsibility of warming the porotta back to life to the delight of Mahesh,me and a few other die-hard porotta fans. With Divya at home in India, everyone was more than eager to have me take the remaining food, and I have a collection of zip lock bag delicacies for a few days ahead. Thank you!

On one of these patio to food visits, I heard Ranjini announce that it is time for the gift exchange program. That is when it struck me that I had forgotten the gift at home. When I entered the hall back,  everyone had plates in their hands with colorful delightful food. I thought you just said you already had porotta. That is called a flashback within a flashback. 

 While the white elephant gift exchange game was going on, I had a discussion with Girish about potential investments I could make to up my music listening experience. Girish gave me very clear guidance and recommendations on speakers/DAC that I could buy. One of the takeaways for me from the group song practice sessions was the deep technical music discussions with Girish.

After the gift exchange, we had open dance floor. Saji with his infectious energy established the moves while everyone around followed suite. He really enables everyone to participate. It was good fun!

Next event for the day is cleanup. Niya and Kittu were enjoying the company of other kids. So I decided to take a solo trip home to return the table and chairs. While loading the chairs in the car and coming back, Lavanya mentioned that she had by mistake spilled some curry on the pavement. Manu, Vipin and other folks came together and started working on the cleaning. I dropped the chairs and table home, and also got Vipin's car key that Divya Vipin had by mistake taken with her. By the time I was back, the pavement was all clean.

 

We cleaned the hall off everything. Only thing left were our memories. I picked the kids and was about to head home. That is when Prakashettan's Tesla would not start. We hung around and discussed on Tesla and it's challenges. Saji who had recently returned his Tesla, and bought a Benz elaborately waved us good bye and drove off. The car would get towed in about an hour. One of us dropped Prakashettan and Leenachechi home, and the group dispersed.