Today would’ve been my parents’ 49th wedding anniversary, so since my dad’s in Heaven and my mom’s in Canada, my Manila-based sibs and I decided to have lunch and celebrate on our own.

As always, it occurred to me that Filipino family lunches follow a pretty typical formula, no matter what the occasion. So since I really have nothing else to talk about today, allow me to enlighten you non-Filipinos out there on some Filipino family lunch how-to’s: 

1. Have enough food to feed an army… or at the very least, a small town. Even if there are only 3 of you attending. 

2. Ignore people who imply you’re gluttons.

3. Make sure someone arrives late. (That’s totally Filipino.)

4. Report on the latest gossip. Discuss. 

5. Talk about poo. Oh, wait, I think that’s just MY family. I have no idea why. We’re gross. Feel free to skip this step. 

6. Make fun of people who aren’t present. 

7. Eat like the world is ending tomorrow.

8. Regret it right after.

9. Be really useless the rest of the day.

For this reason it’s usually better to schedule a Filipino family lunch on a weekend.

And that’s pretty much it! Are we really so different from other cultures? I wonder. Feel free to discuss while I grab another cup of coffee.

Because zzzzzz…..