Cracking hands and colds--Nina

Although the title of this post is quite negative, don't worry, it's mainly pictures of cute kids in homemade pilgrim hats! The holiday season has come to Yongfeng! But with it, unfortunately, comes very cold weather, a lot of sickness, and horribly chapped hands. Our poor students. If you were to look just at their hands, you'd think they had just worked a 12-hour shift washing dishes in scalding hot water. But they're such troopers. They can definitely handle the cold much better than Abby and I can, even though they have absolutely no escape from it, since neither their classrooms nor their houses have any heat. We at least have space heaters in our rooms. Whenever kids come to visit us, they say things along the lines of, "Wow! It's so warm! So comfortable!"

Although it seems like a while ago now, we did celebrate Thanksgiving here at school. We made "pilgrim hats" and hand turkeys. The hats were um...wrong, to say the least, but they were still very cute and the kids loved them. There is no black paper at our craft supply market, so we decided to make white hats, decorated in a fall-like color pallet. You can see the results below. 

Pilgrim Nate and Pilgrim Frank. These boys are the cutest things. Even though they're huge troublemakers in class, they always mean well, and they're just so adorable that it's hard to be mad at them. .

Pilgrims Molly, Leah, Ella, and May.  Look at May's awesome turkey! 

6th grade Pilgrims Sam and James. Sam's hat deviated the most from the correct pilgrim look, but it was such a lost cause at that point that I applauded his creativity. James's is Angry Birds themed.

My door, as decorated by some 6th grade hand turkeys. Note that the one in the middle on the right has a crown. 

Our school's dean went out of his way to try to get us something resembling Thanksgiving dinner. We told him that our favorite thing was mashed potatoes, but that it involves butter, something impossible to find in our village and its surrounding area. He actually did go on a quest for it though, but failed, of course. Below was our special Thanksgiving meal. Actually, this is what we always eat. Every night. Exactly the same thing. Every night. 

Sour/spicy turnips and carrots (top), cauliflower (bottom), and shredded potatoes (right). All of the teachers at our school split these three dishes every night. The third one (potatoes) rotates bimonthly. Potatoes is one of my favorite options, and it's becoming a rare treat lately.

We also have delicious (when it's fresh, which it's often not, which means that it's incredibly mushy) bread every night. Good, freshly baked bread is very rare in China, but this area is known for its special bread. And gruel! That white stuff in my bowl is basically the result of cooking rice in way too much water, then not draining the water. It's not bad. But it's not particularly good. 

At least the bread on Thanksgiving was fresh, and we did have potatoes, despite the fact that shredded potatoes are on the opposite end of the potato preparation spectrum as mashed potatoes. Don't feel too bad for us though. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we flew down to Nanjing and had a great Thanksgiving meal with some fellow expats. 

Christmas is just around the corner, and the kids are already asking about whether or not Santa is coming this year. The 4th and 6th grade girls compete for the privilege of opening my advent calendar everyday.  It's really great to see the kids get so excited about Christmas, but besides that, Christmas in China is a bit...off. All of the decorations are just a little bit wrong, and it just doesn't smell/sound/feel right. It's going to be a rough month. 

Wrong.

Confused.

Terrifying.

Christmas trees on Noah's Ark proclaiming that doomsday (12/21/12) is coming? WRONG.  I DON'T UNDERSTAND!

At least I can do my best in my own room!

My decked out window. Window clings thanks to my wonderful family! The kids LOVE them. They ask daily: "Is it candy? Can I touch it? CAN I TOUCH IT?? CAN I TOUCH IT??????"

My lights!

As you may or may not know, Abby and I live in Xi'an on the weekends, to give us a chance to stock up on clean clothes, HEAT, school supplies, and groceries. We also have a neighborhood Starbucks in Xi'an. This month, we've started a weekly ritual of going there on Sunday nights to lesson plan and splurge on our favorite drinks. I think peppermint hot chocolate is going to get me though the Christmas season this year. It is delicious, and Starbucks's decorations do not feature scary Santas playing the saxophone.