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.