Some More Christmas

Our Christmas Day was much different than last year, but in all the best ways possible... But I get ahead of myself!

Our Christmas Eve was quite similar to last year's. Living in the Bay Area, our first Christmas together, no kids to speak of, we decided to start our own Christmas Eve Tradition. And with that, we found a Chinese restaurant and ate Chinese food for Christmas Eve. I was so happy when I remembered that sweet memory as I rode my bike home from work on Monday night. I reminded Ray and we laughed about how fitting it was that now we were in Taiwan where we could easily and authentically continue our tradition. We opted for a new (to us) tepanyaki style restaurant. It was delish! And for only $100NT per plate, we wish we'd gone there sooner.

All you can eat rice and yummy fried pork with veggies! Plus free don gua cha- it just doesn't get better!

Back to Christmas Day...

We woke up and went into work, where we got to sing Christmas carols with some of the cutest kids on the planet. Then we got the afternoon off (like we do each Tuesday)- so we went home to do our more traditional practices. We sat in front of our little tree and exchanged a few small, precious gifts.

Here's our final spread of Christmas Gifts. *Not Pictured: Ray's classy new watch we had to get to a night market for.

And here I am admiring my new beads of jade... ya know, for beauty.

The best part of this Christmas was snuggling after presents and being able to relax on that blessed holiday.

When we went back to work for our evening classes, Ray gave a final, while I played a few more review games with my 2's so they'd be ready for their final the next day. No matter how many times I told myself these kids didn't care about Christmas, I just couldn't bring myself to give a final on Christmas Day.

Hopefully our Christmas's of the future will include more family, but may they always be as humble, merry and beautiful as this one was. 

2012 Christmas Card

Dear Family and Friends,

Physical cards were a little more than we could handle this year, and apparently even emails have size limits. So we've had to resort to our blog to wish you all the very Merriest Christmas.

Although Taiwan is by no means famous for Christmas celebrations, we've been able to feel the Christmas spirit each day of the season through our fabulous students who made this experience the joy that it was.

From all of us to you, Merry Christmas!

Itchin' For Some Christmas...and Home.

I love living abroad and traveling. It's something I've loved since I was young, even moving across the valley was always exciting.

Sometimes living for a short time in one place is hard though. Especially at Christmas time. Last night I told Ray I felt very "nesty." Are you familiar with the term?

It means I needed to make something feel like home. I needed to do something to make me feel proud of my space.

I needed to craft.

Since we didn't have a Christmas tree, I thought I'd start there. Lucky for me I made these 'book' trees last year and remembered how to do it again this year. Also lucky for me: "How To Kill A Mockingbird" was already falling apart in the cabinet so I felt no remorse in shredding it with a razor blade... Sorry, Harper Lee...

So here it is, our sweet little Christmas Tree for 2012. 

Why yes, I did make that origami star all on my own!

Here's our whole Christmas get-up: advent calendar, snowflake, tree and gifts all in like what, 4 sqft?

It's amazing how something so simple and small can still make you feel closer to a home. Ray reminded me that he is my home, which was and is sweet, but my response for the time was simply... "But I can't decorate you!"

The Final Countdown

Today we officially have exactly one month left in Taiwan.

YIKES!

That's not even a month of teaching days. That is: one month from today we will be on a plane leaving this gorgeous island. We really can't get over how quickly time has flown by.

Nothing tremendous has happened- we did finally get to go to the Taipei temple. It was a much needed trip, we're both happy we got to go.

 We got to the temple the day that Taiwan decided to have two weeks of rain in their "dry" winter season. But it was still beautiful, perhaps even more so.

In other news, Ray continues to be amazing by putting his endless array of talents to use in designing another game.

Meanwhile... I'm still trying to get these munchkins to put an 's' at the end of their plural nouns. *whew!*

Thirty one days until Germany. The reality is harder to take than I thought it would be. Chins up, and tackling each day with more conviction to love every second.