Christmas in Yidu

Even though China does not celebrate the meaning of Christmas as in Jesus' birth; there is Santa Claus and an abundance of Christmas trees everywhere. My contract allows me to have two days off, not including weekends. So Christmas Eve, I went to get a deep tissue massage with Mary and Jennifer after eating delicious food.

I asked my friend,Yuan Mao (Erica) who recently got saved to come to my house. I had a basket of goodies for her, a frame and some girlie makeup stuff. I said to her in chinese "this is for you" - she said "oh,pick one?" I said no, everything is for you. She exclaimed wow, so much. Thank you thank you. She loved her gift- now obviously presents are not the meaning of Christmas but it was a nice welcome to the Chritian family. Then she hugged me and we both knew that meant a lot because she is not sentimental at all! Even for teachers day, the students would come and hug us and she would extend her hand :) I love her tho
ugh, she is so good to me and she makes me laugh.
ugh, she is so good to me and she makes me laugh.


Later 10 of my grade 9 students came to my house with hope in their eyes and asked me to do their makeup for the dress rehearsal which was in an hour! I had previously agreed to do their makeup the day of but now they had a new plan for the day before and the day of. So Mary and I did makeup for the girls. They were so thankful, looked so cute and are very sweet.


Later- Mary, Jennifer and I got dressed to go to a Christmas Eve program at our local church. The performances were very good and we enjoyed it; one of the church members then came to ask us to sing Away in a Manger and Amazing Grace; five minutes later she came back and said, "ok you're next"! So we sang and then left a while later.


After running to my grade 8 class to give them chocolate (and being mobbed by them), I joined Mary and Jen in sipping on some hot chocolate with marshmallows. We then opened one Christmas present and watched Miracle on 34th St. Aubree, the teacher who left before I came called and we all spoke to her. I spoke to her for so long, it was if I already knew her. She is super sweet, she knows the things we miss as a result of living here and she would send them to her friends. How thoughtful! Then we spoke about some of my curent students which are her old students and she gave me insight and advice. I really wished I could have met her, but God has a plan. After the movie, we made a plan to meet at 930am the next day to open presents.

The next morning, I did a bit of cleaning, made some breakfast, apple sauce and a fruit salad and took it down to Jennifer's house along with all the presents for Mary, Jennifer and Jingjing. We opened presents from around 10-2pm! I had so many presents from them, teachers, my students, supervisor, etc! Everything from hair accessories to rice cookers, electric blanket and sweaters!

By this time, I had to meet my students to do their makeup and then get dressed to have mine done.


OK girls, do you want it girly and very feminine...

or do you want smokey or smokey with a lilac color?Then after we were finished, they smiled for the camera

The school puts on a show at Christmas day and this year Jingjing was one of the hosts. Wow, how beautiful!All the students perform and the foreign teachers (Mary, Jennifer and I) did a dance to an S.H.E. (Taiwanese girl group) song called Remember: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYoexSAInQY. Here is our version! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUPgkpP0k9s

Check out the hat man!
Look at these hideous outfits!
We walked in with our heads down because our performance was a secret (they didnt know we would be dancing) and we were dressed up with crazy hairdos etc. Jennifer said that she looks like a psychic with her red sequin headband so I called her Cleo for the night and told her I would "call now for a free reading". The students started screaming and everyone turned around and then they started screaming! We were like so much for sneaking in! They loved the performance; they screamed through the whole thing (as you can hear)!

2 comments:

katie said...

HOT!!! Ha ha yall look awesomee

Aubree said...

hey rose! i loved the video - i wish I could have been there to dance with you guys! :)

it was so nice to finally speak with you... if you ever want to shuo huai or hao hua about your kids, I'm open. I see you did make-up for 902! Love that class... especially little Carla! There are so many keepers in that class.. kevin, sabrina, jodie, and so many more!