Family bonding - Christmas under filaos trees

This year, we decided to spend xmas at the beach. We all met at Palmar, with the exception of my second sister who has decided to dissociate herself completely from our family. A few years ago she wrote a letter to my elder sister and myself telling us that she did not want to associate herself with a 'fun-loving' family, that she would not even 'comment' on my lifestyle and that she was too much of a good hindu brahmin girl to have anything to do with us. In her words, we are too modern, we have no understanding of what sacrifice means, let alone pain & trials and it is blasphemous that we are non-keepers of traditional values.

If you ask my opinion, well, I won't event comment. We have all given up arguing with a raving lunatic and honestly what can I say...when you've lost it, you've lost it.

Well, the fun-loving family spent an awesome time at the beach with my brother struggling for 30 minutes trying to teach us the rules of a card game where no one understood a damn thing, where I go caught red-handed cheating at domino, where Jay's kite got stuck on the filao tree, where Sid & Mayuri fraudulently went to swim in the hotel pool, where little Sujata took poses right before xmas gifts were exchanged and where a beautiful family picture captured the moment.