A Very Chinese Christmas

I thought I would be very homesick during Christmas time but I became SUPER busy and had fun non-stop.

A week before Christmas, I was one a few teachers to go to a children's english school's Christmas party at McDonalds. We introduced ourselves and mentioned some holiday traditions. Then the teachers from the children's school performed a skit, then taught the kids how to say tree, christmas, napkin, french fry, soda, and hamburger. Emily and I then put on santa "jackets" and went behind the counter at McDonalds. The kids came up one at a time to ask for french fries, a hamburger, and soda in english. We took their fake money and gave them their dinner. It was a bizarre experience but the kids were oh-so-cute. I can also now say I worked at McDonalds for an hour in my life.

The next day, all the foreign teachers at Hebei University had a Christmas party. At Thanksgiving time we had chosen Secret Santa names so this time everyone showed up with their gifts. I bought a build-it-yourself wooden replica of the Temple of Heaven plus the movies Inglorious Basterds and The Usual Suspects for another American teacher named Tim. An Indonesian-French teacher named Mao bought me a fancy new wallet (which I have been using since then!). In total we had 20 gifts exchanged with people from China, America, New Zealand, France, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, and Korea. We all sang Christmas songs together and the highlight was when the Japanese teachers sing Jingle Bells in Japanese. Several teachers also sang a song in French. We had this party a week before Christmas becuause we knew we would all be busy that day.

Emily, Kim and I had hot pot for dinner with two of Emily's students, Joy and Vien, on Christmas Eve. After, we came back and watched the short How the Grinch Stole Christmas cartoon. Vien had presents for us all - hand puppets! Emily's lamb, Kim's cat, and my duck created a performance then later performed for Chali. At Chali's, that night, a Chinese santa gave out ornaments shaped like santa's sack of goods. I knew I was in China when the Chinese Santa Claus had a bag of gifts in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Emily and I joined Kim in her room for Christmas Eve. We woke up to our lit Christmas tree and waited for a Russian friend, Lina, to come over. The four of us made breakfast (omelettes!) and exchanged gifts. Lina gave me a green scarf, Kim bought me a Garfield humidifier, and Emily knitted me a black and white scarf. My parents also sent me several gifts - two very good books which I have read by now - but my favorite gift was the greeting card where they recorded their voices saying "Merry Christmas Dayne! We love you!" It almost made me cry on Christmas morning! After exchanging presents, we watched It's a Wonderful Life and took naps. Finally, we showered, got dressed, then met up for dinner. About 10 people ate together at Sandy's Italian restaurant for Christmas dinner. Several American teachers, one American student, one Russian student, one Chinese friend, and one Japanese teacher ate pizza and pasta and drank egg nog to celebrate the holiday together.

What could have been a sad-first-time-away-from-my-parents Christmas turned into an unforgettable holiday!