Christmas has come and gone. It was a busy but great season for us. It was a time when we certainly missed family and friends at home, but we were very busy. Christmas is not celebrated the same or a similar importance put on it here in China. There were many signs in stores for Christmas, but all with Santa Claus and Christmas trees. We did have a lot of students over for Christmas parties though--about 120 in all. We went to Guiyang, the capital of the province for Christmas. It was a really fun time, as about 100 foreigners got together for a celebration at a hotel. We enjoyed getting a chance to meet other foreigners in the area. Many came from Europe and America. Patty played the flute for the music. We had a couple of other get togethers with other teachers from our organization and we enjoyed staying with a family the Millers who have four children. It was fun to see their excitement. We bought some presents for the children before coming to guiyang.

On Christmas morning the kids woke up at 4 am, which was way too early for me. We did not go to the annual church service held on Christmas eve, but watched one on DVD from last year in Missouri. I guess town was really crazy with lots of people who go to the service which is usually just performances. The weather has been very cloudy with a good deal of rain, but we have been staying relatively warm and healthy.

Since returning to college, we have had quite a few opportunities that have come from the parties so that has been great. The students are relived now that the CET tests are done and they get Monday and Tuesday off for New Years. We are not sure if we want to have a New Years get together or not. We are continuing to be busy with finals and getting prepared to travel to Beijing. We had a couple students come over and teach us how to make Chinese dumplings which was really fun. We first went shopping with them and saw where they kill the dogs, it was really hard to stand because over the weekend was the dog meat festival. The dumplings are relatively easy to make with only the skins, meat, green onions and cabbage that has been steamed and drained of water. We made about 100 of them and finished them off between the 6 of us. Maybe we will learn some more Chinese cooking before we come home.

We did not get any snow though over the holidays, as the computer said we could, but I guess Minnesota and the Midwest got all of it. We hope you were all blessed over the holidays and that you are healthy and excited for what the Boss has in store for the New Year.