Finally it was christmas time in lingxi, we worked the friday and had to work the next monday but we had two days for the weekend and so are damn well going to celebrate it!
We had been organising for a few weeks a Christmas party in our flat, so we moved down our tree, Elaine and I headed out to buy food and chris put up some decorations and 20 or so of the English teachers from both schools with a few husbands and children all turned up on Christmas eve for a party! We tried to think of a way of doing Christmas food but thought that since nobody has an oven most english food was off the menu anyway and even if we managed to find a way to cook it Chinese people probably wouldn't even like it!
In the end we bought chinese food in from a restaurant near elaines house including all the bowls etc we would need and just had Chinese food instead, much easier, still tasty, and everyone liked it and knew how to eat it with chopsticks! Still didn't satisfy my roast turkey craving but Beijing roast duck will have to do until I get home next!
No office Christmas would be complete without a secret Santa and this was a true Christmas so a week before we all put our names into a hat and chose them out. I really luckily got Elaine, a close friend, so buying for her was very fun, and I knew I could buy something funny or silly and she would understand. Chris got another close friend so that worked out really well.
Chris bought Eamon a miniture pool set as Eamon enjoys playing a bit of pool and a passport like 'luck in dating' card as the currently single Eamon constantly wants to meet a wife!
I bought Elaine a giant bubble maker sit and a minute bowling set, both good fun, and the kids really enjoyed making huge bubbles! Also a tiny smiling rabbit figure in a box with some Christmas tinsel, very lovely.
The day before Elaine was commenting that making the present opening a game would be a fun idea, perhaps with a puzzle to solve before you can get into the box.
I took this idea and ran with it eventually locking her presents in a box with a chain with a combination lock lock around it holding it closed. On the present was a card with a lot of letters which made a phrase Elaine liked. When the puzzle was solved she would use the relative position of the letters in a simple formula to calculate the answer to the combination lock and so open the present!
Overkill maybe but still very funny and Elaine solved in pretty quickly, the worst bit was that she helped me come up with the idea and even went to the shop with me to help me buy the chain and lock! All without knowing who this present was for! Hehe!
No Christmas would be complete without Santa and even in china this was no different, chris decided he wanted nothing to do with it and so the job of santa fell to me, who am I kidding it was great fun! I had the full suit and the kids thought it was amazing, lots of pictures later it was time to hand out the presents, each person got a present from Santa and the kids and then ended up playing with them straight away! just like normal Christmas kids, except most were over 30!
After this we played pass the parcel with me directing events and faking it so that children ended up with all the gifts, although the adults all joined in and seemed genuinely confused when I set it up so the children nearly always got the prizes! Haha!
After this the party started to wind down as people started to leave, there was just time for a few more pictures and then just Elaine chris and I were left.
We sat down and had a few beers in the big room we used with a projector tv and since it was pretty late ordered a few pizzas in. We then discovered Elaine had never seen father Christmas or The Snowman! Both classics so we put them on and ate our pizza and drank our beers whilst watching them, very relaxing.
In all a very merry Christmas was had by all!
We had been organising for a few weeks a Christmas party in our flat, so we moved down our tree, Elaine and I headed out to buy food and chris put up some decorations and 20 or so of the English teachers from both schools with a few husbands and children all turned up on Christmas eve for a party! We tried to think of a way of doing Christmas food but thought that since nobody has an oven most english food was off the menu anyway and even if we managed to find a way to cook it Chinese people probably wouldn't even like it!
In the end we bought chinese food in from a restaurant near elaines house including all the bowls etc we would need and just had Chinese food instead, much easier, still tasty, and everyone liked it and knew how to eat it with chopsticks! Still didn't satisfy my roast turkey craving but Beijing roast duck will have to do until I get home next!
No office Christmas would be complete without a secret Santa and this was a true Christmas so a week before we all put our names into a hat and chose them out. I really luckily got Elaine, a close friend, so buying for her was very fun, and I knew I could buy something funny or silly and she would understand. Chris got another close friend so that worked out really well.
Chris bought Eamon a miniture pool set as Eamon enjoys playing a bit of pool and a passport like 'luck in dating' card as the currently single Eamon constantly wants to meet a wife!
I bought Elaine a giant bubble maker sit and a minute bowling set, both good fun, and the kids really enjoyed making huge bubbles! Also a tiny smiling rabbit figure in a box with some Christmas tinsel, very lovely.
The day before Elaine was commenting that making the present opening a game would be a fun idea, perhaps with a puzzle to solve before you can get into the box.
I took this idea and ran with it eventually locking her presents in a box with a chain with a combination lock lock around it holding it closed. On the present was a card with a lot of letters which made a phrase Elaine liked. When the puzzle was solved she would use the relative position of the letters in a simple formula to calculate the answer to the combination lock and so open the present!
Overkill maybe but still very funny and Elaine solved in pretty quickly, the worst bit was that she helped me come up with the idea and even went to the shop with me to help me buy the chain and lock! All without knowing who this present was for! Hehe!
No Christmas would be complete without Santa and even in china this was no different, chris decided he wanted nothing to do with it and so the job of santa fell to me, who am I kidding it was great fun! I had the full suit and the kids thought it was amazing, lots of pictures later it was time to hand out the presents, each person got a present from Santa and the kids and then ended up playing with them straight away! just like normal Christmas kids, except most were over 30!
After this we played pass the parcel with me directing events and faking it so that children ended up with all the gifts, although the adults all joined in and seemed genuinely confused when I set it up so the children nearly always got the prizes! Haha!
After this the party started to wind down as people started to leave, there was just time for a few more pictures and then just Elaine chris and I were left.
We sat down and had a few beers in the big room we used with a projector tv and since it was pretty late ordered a few pizzas in. We then discovered Elaine had never seen father Christmas or The Snowman! Both classics so we put them on and ate our pizza and drank our beers whilst watching them, very relaxing.
In all a very merry Christmas was had by all!
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