Sunday Snapshot: Lookin’ like Christmas

Living in China, there aren’t nearly as many daily reminders of the Christmas season. While Christmas trees and Santas are now quite common in China, you’re just as likely to see such things in July as in December. Consequently, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the end of the semester, it often doesn’t “feel” like Christmas. However, this weekend the season finally seemed to arrive in our small Chinese hamlet.

First, our building put up their decorations on the first floor, featuring the ever creepy Santa.

And spectacular Christmas ornaments.

Which, in case you were wondering, almost exclusively feature blue eyed Santas (with the one exception being the creepy life sized Santa). All foreigners have blue eyes. Santa is a foreigner. Therefore, Santa must have blue eyes. Come on people, the logic is airtight.

Also in the lobby, the shiny garland acronym has made its reappearance this year. The first person to correctly guess what the acronym stands for will win a prize (those who have lived in our building are excluded from the competition). Ok, so the prize is only a word of hearty congratulations and acknowledgement of your cleverness. But still, try your best.

Friday night, we hosted a Christmas party for our library assistants. These lovely ladies have worked hard all semester helping us out during library office hours, checking books in and out, calling students with overdue books, helping students practice their English, and explaining Monopoly Deal numerous times.

We ate Christmas snacks, gave out some Christmas themed gifts, and watched A Christmas Carol.

Today, we met up with a group of brothers and sisters for a pre-Christmas feast.

Of course, the meal wasn’t your traditional Western holiday fare.

But there was plenty of joy to go around.

The meal concluded with a game. We counted off in a circle and if your number was a multiple of seven or ended in seven, you were supposed to clap instead of saying your number. If you made a mistake, the group chose a punishment for you. Some people had to eat hot red peppers. Some people had to drink the remaining soup (that’s one way to get rid of leftovers).

Some people had to give a special message to the waitress.

And some people did silly tricks.

After lunch we had a team wrapping party at which we wrapped numerous gifts for department officials and the kids at the orphanage.

We also wrapped up our white elephant gifts for the party later in the evening. Some had a more creative approach to wrapping.

We met up again with the brothers and sisters in the evening for our annual white elephant gift exchange (aka “get rid of a tacky nick knack/gain a new tacky nick knack”).

There were actually some very decent gifts this year. In particular, a set of three coveted Ikea candles. I stole them from a student, but Lauren soon stole them from me.

And then the joke was on both of us when a student went in for the last steal (a present may only be taken three times) and secured the candles for herself.

Seth picked a real winner from the pile, and unsuccessfully tried to tempt someone to steal it the rest of the game.

Lauren contemplated the steal, but then thought better.

There was much laughter.And smiles.

And giggles.

And a whole lot of Christmas cheer. We concluded the evening singing a couple songs; the foreign teachers singing in English, and the students singing in Chinese–a beautiful prelude of the chorus to come one day.