'Tis the Seasons!

Is it Chinese New Year already? It sounds so cliché to ask where this year has gone, but how is it possible this much time has already elapsed? In one short week I will be celebrating the Year of the Tiger in the streets of Beijing amongst millions of people. This only reminds me I have been neglecting my blogging duties and have not written anything about how I spent my own holiday season. The shame has eaten me up inside, so I now feel it my duty to fill you in on the highlights from Halloween to New Years with a top-ten-style recap.

1. Student Halloween party – slap on some wings, antennas, and cheap pink eye shadow, and step back folks, we have a butterfly! The students went ape shit for it and snapped photos non-stop until my cheeks ached from smiling. I was roped into singing "Ghost Busters", was abandoned by the other foreign teachers, forgot the words, and made a complete ass of myself. I think some of my lyrics may have included “If you’re in China, and you’re feelin’ finah, who you gonna call?”

2. Halloween night – Mortified from earlier performance; must console myself by drinking too much vodka.

3. Thanksgiving Shopping – What to do for Thanksgiving when there is no oven in sight? Say to hell with tradition, that's what! Another teacher and I went shopping and ended up coming home with way more than necessary – became mildly excited at the foreign food store and bought 4 different types of cheese. We walked out of the store with a crap load of groceries. Apparently we needed more people – or sturdier bags. Broke the eggs and had to go back a second time.

4. Thanksgiving Dinner – The menu: chicken stew, tacos, burnt mashed potatoes (that was my fault), potato salad, fruit salad, cheesy broccoli, our own concoction of stuffing, store bought cake, and beer. Another teacher and I slaved away all day over three hot plates and a microwave. Burnt potatoes aside, I must say it turned out quite nicely. All the teachers gathered together on Dan’s purple couch to gormandize on our untraditional feast and give thanks for 18 hour work weeks!

5. The Christmas Apples – Christmas isn’t really a big thing in China, with the exception of a few strands of tinsel and some unfortunate looking Santa heads floating about. The one thing they for sure do on Christmas is fruit. So apples are the fruit of safety in China, and therefore it is customary to give them as Christmas gifts to friends and teachers. But not just ordinary apples – apples wrapped in decorative paper! So thanks to my lovely students, I now have more apples than I know what do with! If only there was an oven here to make apple pie. God I miss baked goods.

6. Holiday Parties – Or should I say “parties.” Is it a party if it’s mandatory and all you can think about is stabbing your own eyes out with the dull end of a chopstick? There were three parties this season – one for just the foreigners at our college, one for all the teachers at our college, and one for all the foreigners in Shijiazhuang. The first was sweet – just the foreign teachers, some awesome students, and the song “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” on repeat. The large parties, however, were full of lots of kiss-ass speeches and loads of crap performances (I can say this because my friends and I were one of them). Folks, boredom does not even begin to cover it. I think time might have actually been going backwards. To be fair, however, I do have to admit the food was pretty good, and it was actually kind of fun to rock out to “I’m a Believer” on stage.

7. Christmas Eve – This is the one time I’ve missed American schools – I had to work on Christmas Eve. Although I was showing the movie Elf with Chinese subtitles so it didn’t really feel like working. P.S. After 9 times of watching Will Ferrell fill the residents of New York City with Christmas spirit, I really thought I might kill myself. After work, I went to a Christmas tree decorating competition held by the students, which turned out to be really cute. It was the first time that it really felt like Christmas to me since I’d been in China. I made spaghetti for a few friends, and then we proceeded to go to a bar since we had nothing better to do. At home I would have been watching The Grinch and baking cookies, but alas there was no Grinch and no oven in sight. Wow, my Grandma might have had a point when she told me I reference drinking too often...

8. Christmas Day – Something feels strange; there are no younger brothers knocking at the door begging me to get up. As much as I usually begrudge being woken up, I really really missed them. It was quite peculiar waking up to an empty apartment, and a smidge on the lonely side. Luckily, the apartment was soon buzzing – Richard came down and we made breakfast, and then people began traipsing in and exchanging Secret Santa gifts. I had no Secret Santa gift to open because my room mate drew my name and couldn’t wait until Christmas to give me my gift: it was a nice wallet because I lost mine. Please don’t tell her I’ve lost this one too. Lucky for me, my extremely generous family spent way too much money on postage and had presents shipped to me by Christmas. Thank you everyone, you made my day! I just want to add that I really and truly missed all of you. The rest of Christmas day was complete with lounging, eating pizza, and napping. It was unconventional to say the least, but all in all not too bad.

9. New Year’s Eve – Resolutions have been made and plans are in place. I’ve always been unable to say no, so I have reluctantly accepted an invitation to spend an invitation with Nadya and her friends. She and her friends are all great people, but as a non-Russian speaker, I am in a very small minority. I spend the majority of the evening having no idea what was being said, watching horrible Russian television, and trying to stay awake until midnight. I must be getting old, because I would have much rather spent my New Year’s Eve curled up in bed watching old episodes of 30 Rock until I passed out.

10. New Year’s Day – Aha! I have managed to maintain my glorious tradition of sleeping in and lounging around all day in my sweatpants. It’s nice to know that some things won’t change no matter what country you may be in. I have a personal tradition on January 1st to reflect on the past year. It seems so strange to me that I am now in China; one year ago the idea of picking up and moving across the world had not yet entered my mind. It’s funny how life works out sometimes. Happy New Year everyone; make it a good one.