Although the week leading up to Christmas was kind of a bummer (death disease), the actual Christmas weekend was really fun and memorable. These are all of the pictures from our Christmas celebration here in China. Enjoy!
THE SEASON OF GIVING
Apparently, I temporarily lost my mind and decided it would be a great idea to bake sugar cookies for my students. This would be something I would usually do as a teacher in the states where I have 30 or so students. I have over 500 students here!!!! Yes, I'm crazy and yes I did bake 500 sugar cookies for my students even with the death disease.
Some of the sugar cookies. (This picture was taken prior to said death disease)
SKIP THROUGH THE NEXT 5 DAYS
(No pictures available due to the death disease)
**I promise it's the last time I'll mention it.
GINGERBREAD HOUSES
The kit with hot chocolate and candy cane hershey kisses!
My Gingerbread Outhouse
(We all decided that my house looked like an outhouse, so I affectionately named it the W.C.)
Some got messier than others
Dawn with her gingerbread house
Chelsie with her peppermint house
Erin's church
Lesley's house
Our Gingerbread Village
CHINESE CHRISTMAS CARDS
Dawn, our best Chinese friend, is amazing! I know I have said this before, but we really wouldn't survive without her. She stayed after making gingerbread houses to help us write Christmas cards in Chinese. We baked cookies to deliver to people in our lives here in China that mean so much to us, even if they don't know it and wanted to give them a Christmas card that they could read. Two of them are our regular street vendors, jaozi (dumplings) lady and sweet potato man. We also brought them to our guards at the school, who are so sweet and our always looking out for us. Lastly, to our hip hop teacher whose class we take twice a week and love! All of them were so surprised and appreciative of the cookies and card, especially since it was written in Chinese!
Dawn writing the Christmas cards in Chinese!
CHRISTMAS EVE
Christmas Eve started out very different than all my other ones, including some last minute shopping, checking the school for our missing packages from home, a trip to the grocery store, KFC for lunch, hip hop class, and finishing up our desserts for dinner that night. Christmas Eve night we headed over to the Randall's home, where we celebrated with a delicious dinner and a service to remember the true meaning of this holiday. We also had some special guests, University students from the U.S., here for their month off of school who joined in on the festivities.
The desserts we made for the night
Our feast
Dawn at the dessert table with the panda cake she made
The Randall's Christmas tree
Chelsie lead us in Christmas carols!
Just us girls
After dinner, the seven of us from the Zhong team headed over to Paul and Erin's to have a Christmas slumber party, so we could all wake up on Christmas morning together, exchange gifts, and eat breakfast!
Paul and Erin's apartment was truly a winter wonderland!
Erin's very Chinese pjs!
CHRISTMAS MORNING
Erin and I were so excited about Christmas morning! I never get a good night's sleep on Christmas Eve, I guess it is just the anticipation of it all. I woke up early and thought I was the only one awake, but then I saw that Erin and Paul were up as well, so we played a board game on Paul's ipad while we anxiously waited for the others to get up! Once everyone was up, we drank some much needed coffee and began to open presents! We did Secret Santa, so we were all excited to see who had who!
Aaron, Les, and Chelsie excited to open gifts, while Kevin is still bundled up on the couch.
Les about to open her present!
Aaron was Les's secret santa and gave her a heater! Awesome gift since we are always cold in our apartment.
Erin had Aaron and she gave him a very nice journal.
High School Musical 1, 2, and 3
Lesley was Kevin's santa!
Erin got an adorable hat and sweater from Chelsea.
My turn! I must say I was very spoiled! Paul is an amazing gift giver and got me so many fun things. These are leggings that are very popular here in China. I have already worn them and they are so cute and incredibly warm because they are fur lined!
I also got gloves and a scarf, hair bows, and purple and gold yarn (Erin is going to teach me how to knit)!
Paul=best Secret Santa ever!!!! Thanks P!
Kevin had Paul and got him a lamp.
I had Chelsie!!!! She loves owls, so I found a very Chinese scarf that had owls on it and was fur lined! Also, some finger less mittens and matching earrings.
Erin is an amazing girl! She knitted all of us stockings, so we would each have one for Christmas. Both her and Paul even stuffed our stockings for Christmas morning. They are such a sweet and giving couple.
Kevin and Aaron with their stockings.
Paul and Erin with their stockings. She didn't have enough time to knit ones for her and Paul, so they had these instead.
I love these girls!
Thanks for making this unusual Christmas so memorable! Y'all are the best!
Breakfast time!
We had blueberry muffins, hash browns, eggs, fruit, toast, and yogurt!
CHRISTMAS NIGHT
After breakfast, we hung out for awhile and then headed our own separate ways to Skype with our families. Later that night Dawn came over so we could give her a Christmas gift!
She is traveling for the next 2 months, so we got her a panda eye mask for all of the train rides.
We then had dinner together. Yes, our Christmas dinner was baked eggplant and Chinese noodles made by Dawn. Oh Christmas in China!
Roomies!
Dawn and Les by our Christmas tree.
Last picture from Christmas!
Looks like a really special and fun Christmas! So glad you're healthy again. I miss see you. We're going to TRY to make it to Huangshi as soon as possible. Love, Becca
ReplyDelete