What Christmas Means to Me

Merry Christmas/聖誕節快樂！
I love Christmas sooo much that I am going to keep it going by blogging about it this week!
For those of you who don't know, Taiwan is not a particularly religious country, and as a result Christmas is not a holiday.  In fact, even though I teach at a religious school, we still have school that day. Thankfully, I was given the day off.  But that meant I worked Christmas Eve…

December 23rd- my fifth graders finally think I'm awesome after having them make bread and watch Elf for our Christmas lesson.

Which meant Christmas Eve had to be special.  Summoning my inner Mrs. Claus (and remembering past bosses I loved), my fellow English teachers and I decided to do something nice for our co-workers…we made them coffee!

And some of our children are clearly acclimated to the smell of coffee.

So everyone had something to keep them warm during our morning assembly!

My co-teacher, Vicky, is Joseph

Our very focused and adorable students

I listened to the Christmas story in Chinese with my students and anxiously awaited the arrival of Santa Claus… but maybe not as much as the students once he started throwing candy.

Fun fact…children in large groups wearing santa hats = elves

Then we had even more excitement- our students went caroling to one of my student's apartment building and sang for parents and residents!  We also sold the oatmeal cookies we made the week before to support children in need.  Luckily, we were able to sell most of our cookies to parents.  But we did sell one on the street to these lovely women.

Hi new best friends!

Also my student has a yellow duck outside of her apartment building.
 I aspire to this level of cool.

And returned back to school for the BEST LUNCH EVER!

That's right…chicken wings, french fries, and pizza.  Not pictured: Coca-cola and bubble tea

Little did I know Christmas Eve would be that awesome…and the real fun was just beginning. We had a gift exchange among the teachers at my school.  The rule is simple: you can't buy anything.  So we had some interesting gifts.

Our gifts…at least we wrap them nicely. 

I got a CALENDAR! (and later some soap…but the calendar was the real gift.  It comes from our classrooms!)

After this exchange, we headed up to our Christmas Eve service (where I actually played PIANO in public for the first time in 6 years) and then to sleep…because Santa was coming!
So for Christmas we met up with some friends for a wonderful lunch!

Mmmm…Paella

Surprise!  I went to Spain for Christmas!  (or a Spanish restaurant, basically the same thing)

Unwrapped lots of presents!

(Not pictured: my awesome new yoga mat, scarf, and lots of chocolate I've already eaten)

And went to go see The Hobbit.  This was all followed by the most impressive Skype of all time.

No video…but the Taiwan--> Germany --> USA Skype was a success.

Unfortunately, I had to teach on December 26th…but what better day to have a birthday party for Jesus?

My students decided Jesus' favorite colors are red and blue, so we made two cakes.

Our cake to share with all of our friends…because we decided that the best gift we can give to Jesus  is to share!

I have been trying to keep the holiday magic alive…and will continue to try to do so… at least through next week.

Magic: American cafe with adorable mugs

Magic: Double decker burger. I have now won at life!

That's all I managed to do this week!  Check back next week for my New Year's resolutions, additional festivities, and to see if I have finished all my chocolate!