Christmas Day!

Christmas was really interesting. I was expecting to have a pretty quite, uneventful (and maybe even slightly sad) Christmas without our families and the usual Christmas festivities. I was not heading into Christmas with high hopes. Luckily it was much better than I could have ever imagined it would be. We got a late start on the evening because McKay had to teach an evening class, and while the school was really nice and gave us Christmas day off, Christmas eve was not even thought of. So later that night we were able to have a quiet little dinner together in our apartment and then after made a last minute run to the store to pick up some stocking stuffers, we got online and  we watched It's A Wonderful Life on youtube. That took a while to load, but it sure was worth it because my family always watches that movie on Christmas or Christmas eve, and my dad always tells us about how jimmy stewarts character is a lot like him.

After the movie was done it was about 11:30 p.m. which meant it was 8:30 a.m.back in Utah and 9:30 in Illinois where McKay's parents are. I am so glad we have Skype. It is amazing. We were able to have a nice chat with my family and McKay's family that night, and then again the next morning  and the next night and then again this morning. We were able to catch the families right after their Christmas eve festivities, right after opening presents, and then after their Christmas dinner. Even though we are 14-15 hours ahead of our families, talking to them on Skype made all the difference to our Christmas. It brought in the family aspect that I felt like we were missing so much.

After talking on skype on christmas eve for over an hour, McKay (aka. Santa Claus) decided we needed to play UNO. I was soooooo tired, but I wanted to be a good, accommodating wife, so we played uno until after 1:30. Then we still had to read through the story of the nativity in the scriptures so we didn't get to sleep until really late. And then I foiled McKay's plans. For some reason I automatically wake up whenever he gets out of bed. I don't know how or why I am programmed to do that, but I always wake up when he gets up. Usually I wake up right as he is reaching for or opening the door, but on Christmas eve I caught him opening up his sock drawer to pull out his stash of christmas presents. He was a little upset that I foiled his secret plans, but I think secretly he was glad to have a reason to finally go to sleep.

On Christmas morning we exchanged gifts with each other by placing them in our stockings. Wrapping paper is a little bit more difficult to come by than we anticipated, so we just put the presents in the stockings and then pulled them out. It worked. Then we opened the presents that our students had given us. They were really funny! I got a pair of kissing fish piggy banks, some little Chinese figurines and McKay got a pink Kung-Fu baby statue. He plans on re-gifting it and giving it to someone special when we get back to the U.S.

After opening presents we watched some movies and played games together and then talked on skype until we got a call telling us we had a package across the street in the post office. McKay's mom sent us a Christmas package and it had perfect timing arriving on Christmas day!

Later that afternoon we went over to the Skaggs and watched a Charlie Brown Christmas with the other foreign teachers and then watched them exchange secret santa gifts. McKay and I wanted to do secret santa, but the person in charge was never home when we called or went over to pick a name, so since we didn't connect with him early enough they withdrew our names from secret santa. That was a little sad, but it was still fun to watch the other teachers give and receive their gifts. Thank you Rob and Jacque for letting everyone come over to your apartment. Later that evening we ended up having chicken curry  and sugar cookies for Christmas dinner and then talking on skype, again, meeting my little sisters boyfriend over skype for the first time. Then we played games, watched more Christmas movies and then got a good nights sleep (by the way, we did NOT like Where the Wild Things Are). I know this has been pretty detailed blog post, but that is how we spent our Christmas here in China. It was a unique Christmas, but it was a good one.

Here are some pictures of Christmas Morning: