Christmas Part II: This Time We Got It Right

If you recall, last year's Christmas wasn't too ideal. While there were definitely good parts there were rough parts such as the government coming in last minute and making us take down our decorations and telling us we weren't allowed to do a school-wide Christmas event ever again. 

I thought that last year I could work through the day to distract me from the fact that I was away from my family. I ended up spending that day so annoyed I was working on Christmas for the first time in my life. This year I decided to do things differently. 

Earlier that week, I had a Christmas dinner with the trainers at my gym. In November we had discussed how they had never eaten turkey before and I decided that as a treat I would get them a turkey dinner. The only time they ended up being free was December 21st. To  my surprise they brought me Christmas gifts! I got a scarf and hat, boxing gloves, a traditional Chinese tea set, and a new water bottle. When they asked if they needed to bring anything to the dinner I said chips. They brought literally a garbage bag full of chips. It was surprisingly touching. 

Trainer Tony took this photo. You might notice a Husker hat on my trainer Robert.
From left to right: Jiang, Carter, Shanna, Boom, Robert, David.

We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables and for drinks I had apple cider and mulled wine (a first time making it for myself). One of my guests brought a cake for dessert. We spent the night talking and singing songs together. It was a great highlight to my year so far. 

Later that week the teachers in my office got together for a Christmas event at Teacher Fang Fang's house. We ate hotpot, played a card game, and sang and danced to Christmas songs. It was so fun!

For Christmas Day, I went to Shanghai first for church, then I went to the mall and bought myself some pajamas from the store Tutu Anna and ate pizza for lunch. Later I headed to the Shanghai Starbucks Roastery (I will talk about that in a separate post), rested in another mall, and ate supper and had a drink at Boxing Cat. For the finale I went to a free museum nearby and headed home. Then the cherry on top was calling my family when I got back to Jiaxing. 

Merry Christmas from China!