There have been many things that struck me as strange throughout the month of December, and I'm going to try to give you a glimpse of them. Forgive how disjointed the post will probably seem!
Gigi's preschool (local Chinese school) had a Christmas tree, decorated and with fake presents underneath it, in the foyer of the school. And for the 2 weeks before Christmas every morning they were playing Christmas music over the speaker system. And we're not talking about "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", we're talking "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". If statistics play out correctly, only 12 of the children in Gigi's preschool of 200 are Christian, and they probably aren't even public about it.
Olivia's school (International school with American curriculum), on the other hand, had a winter concert without a single Christmas song in it.
Christmas decorations appearing in Shanghai shopping areas about 2 weeks before Christmas. If you could classify them as "Christmas" decorations. How about a pink tree with purple and red and blue decorations? Or a soaring 20 foot tree (still planted in a pot) with the size of ornaments you would put on your own 5 foot tree? (couldn't actually see the ornaments until you got up close to it.) Or fake packages under the trees wrapped in paper that resembles Valentine's Day, with pink and red hearts all over it? Or a huge 15 foot sign in front of the Chanel counter at a department store saying Merry Xmas (and literally using Xmas). Or my favorite, a Christmas tree in the mall with a sign across it's middle saying "Happy Uniglo Christmas", Uniglo is a clothing store in the mall.
Walking through Carrefour (big grocery store near my house) and hearing over the speakers the tune for Silent Night. As I listened I realized it was in Chinese and I thought to myself, well, that's cool. And a few minutes later I was listening to a Chinese rendition of the song Jingle Bells. But it sounded odd, so I stopped and listened more closely. Even though the rest of the song was in Chinese, the chorus was being sung as "Ding dong bells, Ding dong bells, ding dong all the way." Huh.
My Chinese tutor, Jessie, telling me that she had Christmas presents for the girls, but she wanted me to hide them until Christmas morning. "Why?" I asked. "So they don't open them of course!" she replied. I showed her the packages already under our tree and explained that the kids would leave them there until Christmas morning. She was totally disbelieving, she asked how I got them to leave them alone. I told her that's part of the excitement of Christmas morning, all the kids know you have to wait until that morning to open all your presents. "No! Really?" she exclaimed, "Chinese children would never wait, they would open the presents anyway!"
Explaining to Jessie that presents belong UNDER the Christmas tree, not IN the tree. Her blushing when she realized that's why her presents and ornaments kept falling out of the tree. By the way, Jessie is not Christian and does not believe in God, but thinks Christmas is a great holiday when she and her husband and some friends exchange gifts.
Discovering that if you buy a roll of Christmas wrapping paper at a local Chinese store, the piece of wrapping paper you get is 2 feet by 2 feet, not even big enough for a regular shirt box.
And last, but not least, laying in bed at night and hearing ornaments fall off our tree, followed by the sound of hundreds of needles plink-plinking down to the floor. For despite all our best efforts, our potted Christmas tree started dying about 2 days after it came to our house. On Christmas morning there were actually brown branches that had no needles left on them because the ornaments had slid down the branch, taking all the dry dead needles with them on the way. Oh what a Charlie Brown tree we have, but it's made for some fun memories!
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