Christmas 2012

Christmas for our family was very different than normal this year. Moving away from our families for these few years-we knew we'd miss out on celebrating with family as we usually do-but what I wasn't prepared for was the utter lack of Christmas spirit in the air.

China does not really celebrate Christmas. At least not like we do in America.

The malls aren't packed. Nobody drives around with antlers or red noses on their vehicles, and if our calendar didn't show that it was December 25th, we really would've just worked right on through Christmas day.

NZ did end up having Christmas day off, so we kicked off our Christmas Eve with dinner out at our favorite jiaozi place. We joked about having Peking duck, like the family in "A Christmas Story", but that would have required a drive clear across town, and frankly, we were too lazy to call our driver, load the boy up and head out, so we stayed close to home and filled ourselves silly on jiaozi.

Christmas morning will go down in history as one of the most chaotic, random Christmases ev-er.

Since China doesn't celebrate Christmas, it was business as usual for most folks. This means that at 8:15a, we had NZ's assistant over at our house to greet a heating and AC repairman that we had requested come to clean our ducts. Little did I realize it would be on Christmas morning. Lest I forget, we also had the concrete man pouring new concrete in our shower stall at the same time. Plenty of folks  filling our home-none of them family. Not exactly how we had planned it, but hey--it's China.

Santa really goes down the chimney like this? No way, dad.

After the hustle and bustle of our morning was over, we joined our friends from Catalonia at their place for a nice Christmas lunch & afternoon cocktails. This was by far the highlight of our day. Sharing stories & laughter with people who have become like family in this far away land. As the day turned to evening, we  took the party back to our house with a brief intermission for Sal to open his presents before bedtime.

Santa brought him some wooden blocks and stacking cups. Friends and family also showered him with gifts. He got his first "mobile phone". It speaks in both Chinese and English, and his mama might even learn her numbers, how to say cat and dog, and "let's play" in Mandarin after playing with that toy for a few weeks.



Stockings from Stephanie

We received a few packages from the States and inside one of them were three stockings stuffed full of goodies for us. We had a lot of fun opening them and discovering some highly sought after goodies in them! Swedish fish, taco seasoning, gum and yogurt melts..SCORE!

Once gifts were opened and the boy was put in bed, our friends came to our house, where we ordered Pizza and watched "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". It might not have been a typical Christmas day for us--but it's alright--cause we had each other...and we have Sal in our lives now, which is the best gift I have ever received.