Sheng dan jie kuai la!! Merry Christmas from China!! Christmas is a different time here in China. We can almost go the whole season without hearing much Christmas music, we did not have snow again this year, there are no fights over whether or not you can say or use the words Merry Christmas, as more businesses are donning signs with Merry Christmas, but little in the way of the Christmas cheer and frantic shopping. We did do our most to add a little of the season and reason for Christmas to our students and those around us though. It is still one of my favorite times, because it usually comes at the end of the first semester of school, the students are excited to get out of classes and to head home (from the Chinese students for their annual Chinese New Year pilgrimage--everyone goes home for the holidays).

So we taught our students (and many others) some of the famous Christmas carols. Almost everyone knows Jingle Bells here, either in English or in Chinese (you can check out Ding, Ding Dong on youtube if you want to hear it). We also had Christmas parties for each of our classes, quite a task as there are almost 250 between Patty and I. We made cookies, handed out candy canes, showed Christmas movies (sometimes our wedding video!!), and made ornaments for our once bare, but now overfilled tree. Christmas is not a big holiday here in China, but I believe that is starting to change. This year we saw hundreds of people out selling the Chinese favorite Christmas gift, apples at our gate. You could buy them in all kinds of fancy wrapping, and now our house is full of them (from students). We are planning on making some apple crisp after the parties are finished and we can relax.

This year they also had a Christmas program put on by the English department. Some of our students asked us to do something special with them, so we wrote a play where two of them became our children on christmas morning. We struggled through the differences of culture (language, different customs, and traditions) to try to share with them what Christmas was, giving them Christmas stockings, candy canes, etc. which they did not understand and they gave us apples and money, which we did not understand. In the end, we found one similarity in being able to sing Jingle Bells together (them in Chinese, us in English). It was quite fun and very funny!! There were all kinds of other singers, dancers, and lots of apples.

One thing new we did this year was to write out Christmas cards to some of the vendors and people we visit often who are kind. A student wrote out the Chinese translation and I have been trying to write it out in both Chinese and English. It is the first time many of the farmers and vegetable people have heard of Christmas, and we also gave one to our favorite noodle restaurant people who are Muslim. We are not quite sure of any of their reactions as they merely say thank you...not used to receiving a gift at work. I guess time will tell as we continue to build relationships with them. Keep them in mind this Christmas season.

Last weekend, we went to Guiyang for the foreigner Christmas party...it was amazing and fun to see so many friends. We had tacos (It has been so long since we have had real tacos) for a good-bye party of Susie...we will miss her tons. Then we had lots of goodies at the service. It was so much fun to sing Christmas songs with so many others. The message was on Christmas being the bring of peace to a world that is anything but peaceful (full of chaos and evil). then we went out for pizza and other "western" food. I think I got too much "western" food as I was sick the next two days. But always good to see friends and to talk about some of our plans and ideas for the coming year with more experienced people. We are thinking of having a child through the foster care system (a big decision for us). Please keep that in your thoughts!! We got lots of advice and stories of good and bad things that come from that, lots to think about.

Today, Christmas day, is a very busy one. We have lunch with some of the girls Patty meets with to discuss a book and then they will meet while I go out to the countryside to provide Christmas presents (pictures and candy canes) to the children we visit there. Then we will go out to eat at a local restaurant with some friends and deliver a christmas gift for the family there, before our last and probably biggest Christmas party with our 06 4 year class. We will have a White Elephant Gift Exchange, make ornaments and hopefully go out Christmas caroling with them.

We wish each of you many blessings and peace this year in your lives. May the Reason for our celebration be the Reason for the Joy that you show to others each day.

This past week has been a very busy one...it seems I have been using that phrase a lot more than I would like to, but I guess the Christmas season can be expressed that way in America as well. It is busy for some very different reasons; we do not need to go out shopping for Christmas gifts, we did that in November and sent them to America already, but we are preparing for finals for our students and Christmas parties for each of our classes. That means we will have seven Christmas parties by the time it gets to be Christmas day...it is one of our highlights from the year. We get to make lots and lots of Christmas cookies, not sugar cookies, but instead chocolate chip cookies because we have plenty of them from Patty's parents. The students love them, but sometimes I have to convince them that the chocolate will make them smaller, so they are not afraid of gaining weight from just one.

We found out that with our new school president comes new rules and that we have to give our "official" finals on week 19 (the first week of January). This changes many of our plans...we wanted to go and visit our teammates up in Xining (NW China) and then travel with them to Hong Kong, but now we will have to go later to Hong Kong and maybe stop at some tourist places along the way. WE are excited to be able to see our friend, Queenie, in Hong Kong again and all of our teammates from throughout China. It will also be nice to have super warm weather, as it has been getting cold here (but I should not complain because i heard that there are wind chill warnings in my hometown today). I feel mostly for the students who live in the dorms without heat and electricity and often water.

This weekend, our friend and former students of our school, Paul, came to visit. He is also family and has a job teaching in the west of us. He told of the crazy experience with his job...their school hired 33 new teachers and now they decided that the teachers should also teach music...so the school gave him a trombone and a book and some lessons and expect that he learns it in a few months. It is quite common for English teachers or any teacher to be expected to teach something besides their major subject, such as PE or art, or sometimes math, but this is a new one for me. He is very stressed out, because he does not know if his musical ability will count into him getting hired back next year.

I also went to go and visit my friend Gavin, who opened an English school. I taught the students Jingle Bells and We wish you a Merry Christmas...sorta. Their English level is still growing and some were only 5-6 and the oldest maybe 11. Most of them are from the countryside, but it is always fun to see them and their excitement. They also got a candy cane and heard about the story of Christmas. We have been taking pictures of the students in the countryside near our college and that has been a very interesting relationship. We will often stop by to say hello and to give them pictures of themselves...something very uncommon for them. We do not know what direction to take from here, because most of them will not speak Mandarin well, but the local dialect and their parents and grandparents seem to like it to. We have also been taking pictures with some of the vendors we often frequent and will try to make Christmas cards for them to thank them for their kindness and share some about Christmas.

This next week, we will give some of our finals and start to prepare for our winter holiday. We will go to Guiyang on the weekend for the large foreigner Christmas gathering. We are excited to see many friends there and also to go out for pizza afterwards (you cannot imagine the luxury it is--there are no foreign food restaurants in our city). We get rice and vegetables, or noodles and vegetables or now hotpot (the amazing winter food), and of course lots of other dishes. I have loved getting to know how to cook more and more Chinese food and for some of our students who will visit. What a blessing and how we have been blessed. We hope your week is filled with many blessings and great joy.