It has already been a very eventful Christmas for us here in China. Santa arrives much earlier than he does in the US, so we have already hung and ripped and oohed and ahhed.
Let me also say that Christmas is...different...here. For one thing, it isn't actually a holiday, so there is still school and work. There isn't any religious meaning to it, either. You can get lots of decorations, but nothing that really resembles our wrapping paper. While it's a fun time for shopping, it really isn't the all-consuming focus that we are used to. I will confess that this gave me more than a few (unnecessary) worries. I do worry more than I should about the Santa side of Christmas, and it was more than a bit of a challenge to pull together my usual level of super-spectacular holiday spectacle half way around the world. But as I tell my kids over and over, different isn't better or worse, it's just different. I should take my own advice. I had carted one suitcase full of gifts, and Ryan brought another one with him. I did last minute shopping here in the markets to make sure those stockings (also purchased in China because I could not find ours before we left Florida) were stuffed full. And still I worried. We have a lot of little fun rituals that we re-enact each year, and I just couldn't see how Christmas would be Christmas without them. I talked to the girls a few times about how this Christmas would be different from what we were used to, and to remember to be thankful for all we have.
After dinner on Christmas Eve, the girls and I all lay on my bed talking about Christmas at home, and what we missed the most. I missed going to Christmas Eve service, singing carols, lighting candles and hearing once again the wondrous story of the true miracle of Christmas. It always seems to slow me down and bring me back to what's important. With my children around me, I can't remember a Christmas Eve service that didn't leave me teary with joy. We talked about all the things that mean Christmas...the cookies, hot chocolate, our beautiful tree, the train we run around it, the town of little lighted houses, the way our neighborhood gets all decked out.
We spent some time finding Santa on the NORAD radar and seeing how much sooner he would get to China than America. We also elfed ourselves and laughed ourselves silly. Then we started with opening new pajamas (ritual #1 completed).
The girls and Ryan loved their cozy, soft new holiday pjs. I even got some, too. Then we had hot chocolate, a HUGE treat, as we cannot get it here. And peppermint bark all the way from the Harry & David store in Palm Beach Gardens. Yum! (Ritual #2. Since we didn't have homemade cookies to leave out, Santa got some peppermint bark - lucky Santa!) Then we took turns reading Letters from Father Christmas by JRR Tolkien. (Ritual #3 - although usually we read The Night Before Christmas, this was a nice change.)
Time to hang stockings. Definitely different. No staircase or fireplace, so we created a chain out of hangers and hung stockings on them depending on your height. Whatever works, right?
I brought the small artificial tree that we have for our house upstairs and arranged the gifts around it. Not the usual mass of gifts in all kinds of holiday wrap with bows and ribbons. Just two different kinds of paper, one blue and snowy, one teddy bears and ice cream cones. No bows, no ribbons at all. But you know what? Everyone loved what they got. Everyone was more than satisfied. Marissa said, "Mommy, this Christmas was better than you said it was going to be." Yup...I worried for nothing. We're all together, and though our little traditions may have been executed differently, the essence of Christmas came through. It didn't take mass quantities of expensive gifts to make Christmas special. I knew it all along, I guess I just forgot.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas just like ours!
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