K: 'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for quiet foggy frosty mornings.

'Tis the season for receiving packages. N got a phone call this morning from a man at the China Post and between broken English and even more broken Chinese, N figured out that he needed to make a trip into the Old City to retrieve a package? two packages? On arrival, he discovered that he had to juggle no less than five packages. Thanks to our moms; our SIL, Kelly; and A. We're feeling the love today!

"Tis the season for opening the home. The Saturday after Thanksgiving in lieu of our weekly foreign fellowship meeting, we opened our home and the vacant apartment across the hall from us (which in years past has also been occupied by a foreign teacher and to which we keep the keys) for about fifty folks to come and celebrate Thanksgiving with a sumptuous potluck spread including two turkeys brought in from Beijing and all the trimmings. My favorite moment was walking into the dining room to see N huffing and puffing and then stomping on a Tupperware lid being consumed by acrid flames. It seems the decorative candle on the food table got crowded and set fire to the plains. We lost a paper Indian and his Pilgrim friend as well as the tupperware lid before N got the situation under control. The afternoon also appropriately involved a rowdy game of touch football. The highlight being trying to explain "they used their blitz" to a Romanian who thought he was going to throw long when he went down before he knew what hit him.

'Tis the season for opening the home again. This past weekend on Saturday night, all the foreign teachers and one of the foreign students opened six homes between us and invited an innumerable amount of students to make the rounds eating different foods, making different holiday crafts, and generally being oh so merry. My favorite moment of the evening happened in the dining room while I was manning the craft in the living room. A guy N places soccer with leaned in and nodding towards the girl with him whispered, “She thinks you are very robust. She wants to hug.” After some banter N discovered he was serious when he glanced at the girl and she nodded. As he moved in for the side shoulder pat, she grinned from ear to ear, threw her arms wide, and pinned his arms to his side in a giant bear hug. Comedy. We ended the evening as a choir gathered around a brilliant Christmas tree in an empty building on campus singing Christmas songs. The short video here is the Chinese version of Silent Night (the second time is in English). Thanks to the team from Wichita, Kansas who came for the week and brought all of the crafts and the spirit of the season along to make this annual party such a glowing success.

'Tis the season of Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. Hope yours is full of such things too.