There's no place like China for the holidays! -Nina

Abby and I survived our first Christmas away from home! Although it made me quite homesick, we had a great time, thanks to Skype, our wonderful family and friends who sent us packages full of presents to open on Christmas and copious amounts of chocolate, the teachers at our school who threw us a karaoke Christmas Eve party, our easily excitable and adorable students, and last (and perhaps least) expensive, imported butter that allowed us to make cookies. 

[Things that did not contribute to a happy Christmas season: 20-degree weather with no heat in the classrooms and only space heaters in our rooms that take a long long time to heat up on Mondays; all of the frozen pipes that made it impossible to flush any of the toilets for 4 days (and counting), wash our hands, properly do dishes, etc; sleep deprivation; the cough that will not stop plaguing Abby and me]

But anyway, back to the happy parts!

We had a cookie decorating party! Food coloring and sprinkles courtesy of June and Steph, last year's fellows. who left awesome baking supplies for us.  We gave most of these out as gifts to the other teachers at our school, but we saved a bunch for ourselves. They were delicious.

On Christmas Eve after dinner (the usual gruel and cauliflower), the other teachers at our school sneakily decked out the music room with very festive and sparkly Christmas decorations. In China, a party is not a party without karaoke. So, we spent the rest of the evening performing various songs for each other, accompanying each other on toy percussion instruments, attempting to dance along to Gangnam Style, and playing games that Abby and I didn't quite understand. The highlight of the evening was when everyone make a circle around Abby and me singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" while spinning around us. Everyone kept asking us if this is how we usually celebrate Christmas Eve. The principal was having trouble taking no for an answer. "But, if you don't sing karaoke on Christmas Eve, what do you do?"

Decorations and snacks for the party. The decorations were still up in music class the next day. The kids were psyched.

Rocking out on the toy instruments! From left to right, that's Chenzhe (the 4th grade homeroom teacher who sings Chinese rock songs at the top of his lungs whenever  possible, among other quirks), Wang xiaozheng (the principal, who, luckily, didn't bring alcohol to this party, which is out of character for him), Wang zhuren (the wonderful wonderful dean), Liu laoshi (the adorable 1st grade homeroom teacher), and Lu laoshi (the 6th grade homeroom teacher). Sorry about this picture's quality. My phone struggles in low light situations. 

Although that would've been enough fun for most people on Christmas Eve, Abby and I just hadn't had enough, so we decided to stay up until 3 AM stuffing gift bags for all 240 kids in the school. In theory, we could have done this before Christmas Eve, but, unfortunately, we didn't. Last week in art class, each student (from 1st to 6th grade) made a gift bag for his or herself, which we then delivered to Santa, for him to fill up and give back on Christmas. We wanted to do stockings, but it was too logistically challenging. We (Santa) filled up each bag with three pieces of good quality candy (chocolate!), an eraser, a pen, a coloring book page, a personalized notecard from Santa, and tissue paper. This took longer than expected, hence the 3 AM. Thank you, Arrested Development, for getting us through that night.

The bags for the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grader, with the wrapped class gifts (a book) on top!

We asked the dean if he was willing to be Santa on Christmas morning and help us hand out the presents. He agreed jollily, because he's wonderful. So, at 7:30 AM, when the kids were settling into the classrooms, we surprised them with sacks full of presents and good cheer. They were SO EXCITED!

4th graders, trying to prove that Santa Claus was actually their language teacher/dean. He did a great job attempting to convince them otherwise. We taught him how to say HO HO HO, and he nailed it.

The 5th graders came to school already decked out in Santa hats that I think they got from their teacher last year. (June, correct me if I'm wrong.) They looked especially adorable doing their morning calisthenics routine as mini-Santas. 

It was wonderful seeing the kids get so excited about just a little piece of chocolate and some school supplies. Abby and I both had a full day of classes on Christmas, which was rough, but we tried to make it fun. We watched Sound of Music in my music classes, and we made play-do in science and pop-up Christmas cards in art.

We actually rearranged our classes for this week so that we could take a few days off for some much needed warmth, relaxation, and running water. So, on Tuesday night, we went back to Xi'an to attempt to make a satisfying Christmas dinner and talk to our families, and today, we flew down to Yangshuo, a gorgeous and somewhat warmer part of the country, where we'll be until Sunday.

Merry Christmas everyone!