Surviving Christmas in China

Please don't let the title of this post fool you. . .I had a wonderful Christmas this year. . .I just like parallelism in titles :)

Christmas Eve arrived and I had already been through at least 5 Christmas parties, so in many ways, I was ready to just take a break. And eventually I did, but not before I was able to share Christmas Eve dinner with my roommate and some very special people. Erica invited three of her students and their moms over to our apartment for Christmas Eve dinner. She wanted to share some of her Christmas traditions (like eating lasagna on Christmas Eve) with them and she also allowed me to share the evening with her. Of course, the moms also brought some Korean food with them and we had a veritable feast. It was a delicious dinner and it was good to have an opportunity to get to know these moms better. I did have to cut my time with them short because we had a Christmas Eve slumber party planned!
Most of the other single ladies who stayed in QD for Christmas spent Christmas Eve together at my friend Kris' apartment and it was a blast!!!!! We watched White Christmas ("Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister, and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!") and we watched While You were Sleeping ("Hey Luce, you need some help. . .it looks like he's, ya know, leaning.") and we put together a puzzle and ate food and opened Christmas presents and talked and had a wonderful time. These women have been such an encouragement to me in my time here. Kris, our school guidance counselor, has been here for like 11 years and she is always willing to help me figure out life in China. She is also such an encourager, saying out loud at just the right time words that always lift my spirits. Angela, our curriculum coordinator, is the person who I can go to and be honest about my struggles and frustrations and triumphs in the classroom. Part of her job is professional development and sometimes that just means that she lets me bounce ideas off of her and gives suggestions as needed. She knows and understands our students and truly loves them. Jenny-lea has truly been a sanity-saver this year. She was the previous Journalism teacher, so when it was passed to me, she spent hours talking to me, giving me suggestions, helping me avoid mistakes, and encouraging me. We have had great conversations about school, teaching, life and tea. I could not have imagined a better first China Christmas Eve than spending it with these wonderful women.
Christmas morning, I actually slept in! But I woke up to breakfast casserole, birthday cake for the Baby, pancakes and other delicious goodies. After ducking out to go call my family and say hi to everyone who went to Aunt Lori's for Christmas Eve, I returned and spent a relaxing morning and afternoon watching funny movies, talking, laughing, eating and bonding.
The Hedricks invited me over to their place for Christmas dinner. Blake, a first grade teacher, has been at QMIS since it began and his dedication and passion is inspiration. His wife, Marivic, is another women who has been an immense help while we have all gotten settled in our new homes in a new country. They have two children, Aaron and Sophia. . .more about them in a bit. Tim & Stacey and Stephanie, who all came to China this year, were also there and we had a wonderful time talking and enjoying Christmas. This was probably the most "normal" Christmas thing I did all day. Blake cooked a delicious turkey and Marivic made all the trimmings to go with it. . .mashed potatoes, cranberries, sweet potato casserole, stuffing. . .delicious. Because I was in Hong Kong for Thanksgiving, it was so nice to get this traditional holiday meal. After dinner, Aaron, a fourth grader, organized a couple games for us. Aaron reminds me a little bit of Craig in his love of history, friendliness and the ease with which he can interact with people older than him. The first game we played was similar to a Swiss game I played once. We sat in a circle and took turns rolling dice. . .if you got double sixes, you had to put on two oven mitts and work on unwrapping a present. . .but you only got to do that until someone else rolled a double six and then they stole the oven mitts and present from you. And the present was one of those small things wrapped in bigger and bigger boxes. We also did a scavenger hunt around their apartment. Aaron hid stamps all over and we had to find them all and stamp our paper to win. The games were fun and the fact that this 9 year old took the time to organize games for us was a real blessing.
Towards the end of dinner, I got a call from Philip saying they were all up and waiting to open their presents with me. Yes, friends, it is true. I waited until 7:00 PM on Christmas NIGHT to open my presents from my family. Anyone who knows me also knows that this was really hard for me. But it was nice to be able be a part of the circle on Christmas morning and see Mom and Dad, Philip and Gina, Jesse, Julie and Craig all open their presents. They sent me a box a presents so I had presents to open too. In this sense, I don't feel like I missed out on too much. . .I got to see how excited Julie got when Craig opened Rock Band for his Wii. I got to see Philip, Julie, Craig and Dad try on their soccer jerseys that Jesse brought them. I got to see Mom and Dad open their very special presents from Gina and Philip that announced to the family that there would be a new addition to the Shimer family very soon.
I know this post is getting long, so I will end with this. Yes, I missed my family very much on Christmas. However, because of Christmas and the Child that was born and what He did for me, I was still with family on Christmas. And I know that's not the greatest blessing that I received because of the Gift the Father gave to us; however, on this Christmas, I came to appreciate my extended family even more and was really thankful for them.