Final Preparations and Decorations for Christmas
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| Our tree on Dec 22 |
Even though we began preparing for Christmas in the first weekend of December, we still found a ton of work to do in the final days leading up to Christmas.
The biggest thing we had to complete was a set of gift boxes we were constructing for a few friends, foreign teachers and other colleagues. The boxes had some yummy candies and some homemade cookies inside.
As of Dec 22, the boxes were ready and filled with candy, they were just waiting for some freshly baked Christmas cookies!
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We lined up the gift boxes on our bookshelf.
Also, Yoda makes another appearance in our
Christmas decor - he s joined by C3P0. Dec 22 |
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| A small close up of a box. |
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| A close up of the back of the box. |
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Connor's Christmas clothes are hanging from the side of the
shelf in anticpation for Christmas day! (Yes, the clothes are
waiting in anticipation that's how much excitement there is!) Dec 22 |
The real purpose of these boxes is to gift people apples on Christmas. Occasionally people give apples for Christmas in China. It's a kind of pun. The first sound in the word for "apple" is also the first sound in the word "peace" and the word "peace" is the first word in the words that make up the translation of the word "Christmas Eve" (literal translation here would be "peaceful eve"). Whew.
So, we bought these boxes to give gifts in and found this interesting text on the back. (see detailed image above). We had no idea what it was so we asked our friend Google (who introduced us to Wikipedia) for help. We discovered that it is called "lorem ipsum" text - a text used in publishing or graphic design on mock up items to show where text would be and basically how it would look on the "page." Cool! Wikipedia knows a lot more about it too but don't quote it in your research papers...
Christmas Food & Christmas Dinner!
What is Christmas without great food? Christian was our cooking guru on Christmas as he baked several dozen cookies and organized and cooked Christmas dinner!
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Christian carefully removes the cookies
from the cookie sheet... Dec 23 |
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| Christian is really happy about these cookies! Dec 23 |
We made three different kinds of cookies. Chocolate chip (pictured above), sugar cookies (with red and green sugar sprinkles! - sorry no "in-process" pictures!) and petticoat tails. The petticoat tails were made in loving memory of Christian's maternal grandmother who passed away over the summer. Petticoat tails were her favorite Christmas cookie.
At first we were afraid they weren't going to turn out because the beginning of the roll we made was super crumbly, but the ones that stayed together (and didn't get too burnt!) were great!
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Petticoat tails cooling on the rack. We bought this
three tiered cooling rack as a Christmas present to ourselves.
(Is that awesome? or is it awesome times three?) Dec 23 |
The Christmas dinner we organized involved 5 other people some of whom were also in charge of bringing dishes. We were responsible for 2 main dishes and we decided to do one Western dish and one pseudo Chinese dish. The pseudo Chinese dish was beef stir fried in peppers, tomatoes, and onions. The end result is very tasty, but not quite Chinese and not quite Western.
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| The semi-final product! An uncooked pie! Dec 25 |
Our second dish was a more ambitious, never before attempted, Chicken Pot Pie. Not only was it our first pie, but our first pie crust! It turned out really well and it was fun dish to try, but the crust did turn out to be too hard and we failed on prepping for this because we only owned chopsticks. Ever try to eat a Chicken Pot Pie with chopsticks? We don't recommend it!
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| Christian diligently works the crust. Dec 25 |
After a long day of cooking, we finally eat!
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Left to right: Huang (the husband of one of the a yis in the building), his daughter Huang-Song, Shirley (a fellow English teacher), Andy (another English teacher), Simon (a French teacher), and Kim.
Christian is taking the photo and Connor is asleep. Dec 25 |
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The cooked pie. You can see the crust didn't
exactly turn out. |
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| The aftermath! |
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| Connor says "Merry Christmas"! |
You may be wondering where's Connor?
(Have you seen this boy?)
Connor slept through most of dinner but he did eventually put in an appearance!
<--This is really not the best photograph, but he had a great time playing with everyone and gave out lots of smiles. He really seems to do well with new people - and with lots of people - which is great considering where we are!
Christmas Eve!
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| Connor has no idea what is about to happen. Dec 24 |
On Christmas Eve, Connor got to meet Santa Claus. Now, there aren't a lot of chances to meet Santa in China, in fact, we only found one in our city at a KFC. There was a decent sized crowd of people waiting in line to see Santa but we eventually got our turn.
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| The "line" of people waiting to see Santa. Dec 24 |
People don't wait in lines here the way we do in America. Here it usually a crowd of people who push and maneuver themselves to the front. I assume it's only annoying if you grew up in a culture where people do wait (usually patiently) in lines.
After our visit with Santa, we went home and were visited by some of Christian's students who wanted to say "Merry Christmas" and look at the Christmas tree.
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| Students visiting the tree. |
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Our shelf after giving our gift boxes
filled with apples from visitors. |
The students really liked seeing the Christmas tree and Connor.
Some of them brought us apples and one of them brought us a pomelo which was almost too big for the shelf.
After the students and other visitors left, we set out Connor's cookies for Santa and went to bed.
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| Under the tree on Christmas Eve night. |
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| "Dear Santa, This is my first Christmas. Please bring me something special. Love, Connor." |
Christmas Morning
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| Christmas morning! |
Starting with the stocking, our plan was to open the stockings and presents Christmas morning, but we didn't make it too far before Connor fell asleep...
Connor really liked the monkey hiding in his stocking!
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| A new hat! |
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| Asleep again after opening his stocking. |
Presents
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| Under the tree, after Christmas Dinner. |
We weren't in a rush to open presents-which was a great thing because getting dinner prepped and navigating Connor's naps and eating schedule at 3 and a half months old was going to be demanding enough for us. Christmas was very special and a lot of fun，especially because many of our family mates sent us warm wishes and / or planned ahead and shipped us packages. Below you'll see a selection of "present photos"...
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| Connor opening his first present! Dec 25 |
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| Connor loves presents! Dec 25 |
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This package from Christian's father
arrived on Christmas Day! |
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Christian with a package of Reese's cups
sent by his Dad. Dec 25 |
Connor opens a silverware set on Dec. 26th.
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You're not supposed to eat them.
You're supposed to eat WITH them! |
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"Must bite the robot!"
Connor with Rusty the Robot. Dec 26 |
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| Biting his bottom lip. Dec 26 |
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Connor says "Half the fun of unwrapping the presents is
eating the paper." Dec. 26 |
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Amazing hand quilted baby blanket made by
Connor's great aunt Carole. Dec 27 |
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| Dec 28 |
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Playing with the Lamaze inchworm.
Dec 28 |
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| Leggings, leggings everywhere! Dec 28 |
Christian and I filled Christmas stockings for each other and laughed when we realized we bought each other fruit drops.
December 26
We woke up the day after Christmas (which would be in the evening of Christmas day if you were in America at the same time) to a wonderful dusting of snow! Our first snow in Wuhu! and Connor's first snow!
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View from the East -
further South than previous. |
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| The view from the East |
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The view from the West.
Chinese palm trees covered in snow! |
In the evening we were invited to attend a holiday dinner / party...
Before the meal some games were played. Christian participated in one where people tie balloons to their feet and try to stomp on each other's balloons.
Christian lost the game, but got a tube of toothpaste as a consolation prize.
This was Connor's second banquet (see previous blog post) and so far he's not very interested in them.
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| Christian holding Connor. |
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| Kim holding Connor. |
Shots of some of the food...
There were about 15 tables all with an identical spread. The dishes kept coming and dishes were removed as needed.
Misc.
Here are some pictures we wanted to share, but don't really belong in the other sections.
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| Connor explores the jacket's zipper. Dec 24 |
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| Yoda in the window. Jan 11 |
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| Christian with his arm around the tree. Jan 11 |
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| Connor ready for Christmas! Dec 5 |
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| Last day with our tree in 2013. Jan 11 |
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| Connor having fun while exploring new toys. Dec 29 |
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| Connor and Kim ready to go out. Dec 22 |
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| Connor sits on Christian's stomach. Dec 27 |
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| Christian and Connor. Dec 23 |
Thank you again to our family and friends for helping us
make Connor's first Christmas a special one.
Celebrating the holidays away from home isn't easy but all the phone
calls, emails, facebook updates, and packages helped.
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