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Published: January 6th 2010
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Christmas morning
Merry Christmas! Kim is trying out her new 'faceframe' pose. Christmas once again in Shenzhen. This was my second in China but my first without any family. My sister came to spend Christmas with me last year. She was studying in Florence at the time. But now the whole of my family resides in the U.S. and I am the only one living abroad. I invited Kim and Michelle to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my apartment. I got a Christmas tree and decorated it all in red and yellow (for the Chinese flag) and bought all the fixins for a meatloaf and mashed potato Christmas dinner.
My family sent a huge box of Christmas goodies including lots o’ chocolate and two ornaments for my tree: a fortune cookie and a Chinese takeout box. It is tradition in my family to receive a new pair of pajamas and new slippers on Christmas Eve. My new pj’s and slippers sent from home were wrapped and under my tree. I wanted Kim and Michelle to share in the custom so I searched for suitable Christmas themed pajamas but couldn’t find any. But I did manage to find some booties bedecked with reindeer so I got a pair for each of
my friends.
I had to work on Christmas Eve until 10 o’clock, so Michelle and Kim came over after I came home. We made Bailey’s hot chocolate and Kim shared all the Christmas cards that her students made for her. Some of them had us in tears. The sincere attempts of a Chinese ten year old to write in English can be quite hilarious. Afterwards we watched a movie then talked until nearly three in the morning. We all went to bed and didn’t wake up until ten on Christmas morning.
Since it was Michelle’s first Christmas she opened the first present. We all opened our gifts and then Michelle had to leave to attend her cousin’s birthday dinner. Kim and I thought it highly inconsiderate of her cousin to be born on our holiday, but we understood why Michelle had to go. I made pancakes for breakfast, and then Kim and I settled into my sofa to watch more movies. Both of us were feeling a little in the muck about being away from home for yet another Christmas but I felt some small comfort that we were at least having a blah day together.
In
the evening I made our dinner but that was the most activity I had that day. Cooking, washing up, cooking some more, washing up, and lots of movie time. I didn’t even change out of my new penguin pajamas. It was a pretty good day.
The day after Christmas my workplace had a Christmas party. We (the foreign teachers) had not been asked to help plan or participate so I had no idea what the party would entail. As expected, nothing had really been planned. It was a disorganized and boring mess. A couple of the children played some music. One of the teachers played some music. Another teacher sang “If” which she had just learned the previous day. At least I think it was “If”. It wasn’t very recognizable. Then there was some sort of raffle for the children and another for the adults. Just as I was beginning to wonder if there would be any games or anything fun to do Erin started explaining some sort of card game called ‘Killer’ in which everyone is dealt a card and some people are police and some are killers and blah blah blah. No one could understand how to
play it. Everyone was getting restless. So Paul sat down next to the boom box and I threw some chairs into the middle of the room and yelled ‘Musical Chairs!’. I don’t think Erin was very happy that no one wanted to play her game. I also don’t think she realized that the party she was responsible for planning was sucking out loud. After musical chairs I tried to teach the kids how to play ‘pass the balloon with your knees’ but I couldn’t keep them from cheating so that was a no go. We decided we could quickly knock up a ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ so I ran back to the office to make a tail while Tom attempted to draw a donkey on the whiteboard. When I got back to the party room most everyone had left. We (the foreign teachers) all agreed that perhaps one of us should plan any subsequent parties. I volunteered since I have some experience with event planning.
Hopefully the next social gathering will be much better.
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