This year I will be celebrating Christmas in China. I found out way too late from the school that I could end my classes early so that I could return to the states for Christmas. This wasn't really a problem for me since I had no intentions of going back home anyway. My plan is to make the most of my time in China and see everything I came here to see, plus a whole lot more. Not to mention, I don't have a home in the states to return to. I haven't spent Christmas with my family in years and spending Christmas with my soon-to-be-ex-in-laws always caused me great anxiety (and I'm not generally an anxious person).
I didn't do a special Thanksgiving post this year, but I spent my day teaching and in the evening I had a special dinner with my adult evening students. I teach English to eight working adults on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Our Thursday evening class coincided with Thanksgiving, and I'm allowed to be creative with my teachings for the class. So I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner to teach them all about our traditions and I was able to prepare a dinner very similar to what I would have had at home even with my limited kitchen appliances and no oven. Oh yeah, and no turkey either. As far as I can tell, they just don't have turkeys here. By the end of the evening, I had so much fun with my new group of friends that I didn't even miss being home for Thanksgiving at all.
So this week for Christmas I decided to do the same thing. We could have ended our classes early, but the class and I wanted to share a special Christmas party together. We are even doing a gift exchange game and everyone is bringing a gift. The school has generously scheduled a special lunch for the foreign teachers as well so I will be celebrating much of the day. On Christmas Eve, I will be having dinner and exchanging gifts with some friends I've made during my short stay here. They don't celebrate, but they know I do and want to experience the Christmas traditions with me. We'll be dining out at our local Pizza Hut and I'm really excited for it! It sounds really weird to have Pizza Hut for Christmas Eve dinner, but I love pizza and rarely eat it here because all of the western restaurants are really expensive. The Pizza Hut in China has a wide variety of menu items, including steak. I'll of course be sticking to the pizza. With all the stress I've had over the holidays during my marriage, I'm really looking forward to enjoying a fun Christmas party with new friends. I hope you all enjoy the same!
What are your holiday plans?
No comments:
Post a Comment