Wow. It's been a long and wonderful holiday. It started just over 3 weeks ago, on the 14Th of December. That was the last day of school for the children. This year we decided to stay at home for the Christmas break. I think it was nice most of the time, and of course, it would have been nice to go on a small trip. I have hardly had any turns on the computer! I pretty much get it when the kids aren't home. So...lots to catch up on. We had a nice, lazy, and fun week that first week of the break. We tried to get out a couple of times. We went ice-skating one day, which was a big hit. Do you think the children know it's not normal to have huge ice-warts all over the rink? Or water around the edges? I don't know. We did have fun teasing Jay that they gave him pink skates! We had fun making and decorating Christmas Cookies. The children all finished up their Christmas shopping. We were mostly waiting for Michael to finish his last day of work on the 21st, when he would have over a week at home with us! He had saved up a week for the trip we had planned to take on the break. We decided to "vacation at home." It was nice.
On Sunday evening the 23rd, we had some great friends over for dessert and a white elephant game. Julie and Warren, Ginnelle, Paul and little Clare, and Debra and Steve all came. We had a really nice evening. As you can imagine, we had some very interesting gifts we picked up here in China. One of the favorites was a toy chicken who played music, danced the chicken dance and choked and sputtered if you picked him up by the neck! The girls all fought over a cute scarf and hat, and Mike and I fought for a red pair of long underwear for Mike to wear to Harbin in a couple of weeks :-) (It's supposed to be REALLY cold there.) The fun girls from Ma'an shan came to stay with us on Sunday until Monday, and they joined us for the get-together. One little not so merry Christmas surprise was that my good dryer broke that day! It was the very expensive one I had to really fight to get in order for my sanity...the one that was imported and actually works. They weren't even sure they could fix it, but a couple of days ago, it was returned, and working!!! Hurray. Our Ayi, Wan is certain they gave us the wrong one because she thinks the door opens on the wrong side now. But I don't care. It works!
Christmas Eve was a nice day. We had our traditional Christmas Eve Nativity Pageant. I always remember the one at Grandma and Grandpa Russon's house being so serious. Well, ours never are. We had Mary (Nicole) being dragged on the stuffed lion donkey by Joseph (Jay). Rachel standing up reaching out over the stairs as the angel, and Eli really wanting to bring gifts he would like instead of the traditional gold frankincense and Mir. Caitlin was a fine Shepherd. I actually got to do the photos this year and Mike read, which is usually never allowed. I think it's because we didn't video, just took still shots. He doesn't like to be in them. Another exciting thing, is we actually sang more than one song (but didn't sound any better than normal). It ended with me having to decide not to get frustrated because this is the only part we actually "focus" on the birth of Christ and we are way too silly. But, thank heavens for the Church productions...we ended the evening watching Joy to the World, and salvaged the spirit of the whole thing! We had fun opening love gifts that we exchanged with my family back in Utah. Last of all, we made a plate of cookies for Santa, and read The Night Before Christmas. The boys, who still believe, were so excited! I don't know how much longer that will last, so I really cherished this year.
On Christmas day, we had a wonderful morning. Santa found us all the way in Nanjing. We had a wonderful time opening gifts from each other, family in Utah, and Santa. We had a leisurely morning with a nice big breakfast...until we discovered some of the kids had lice. It seems that it's very easy to get that here. I spent the morning working on that. I'm pretty much a pro now, and I had them all cleaned up and lice-free before we had the whole branch over for a dinner at 3:30 that afternoon. It was a fun, exhausting day! We spent the rest of the week just relaxing and enjoying Mike. On Friday, I took the girls to Shanghai as part of their Christmas gift, where they bought some clothes. We had a great time. Mike had some " father-son" time with the boys.
We enjoyed the New Year week, and I think the children were very ready to go back to school on Monday. Looking back, we have had an amazing 2007. We have been so blessed. We've had big adventures, small adventures, visits with family and friends, and challenges, as well as fun. We look forward to this new year, and the mysteries it has in store for us.
