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| One of the highlights of
every calendar year is the chance to share Christmas traditions with our
students and friends. We host special "parties" every Sunday during
Advent, as you can see below, and sometimes get
the chance to do other things together to celebrate the world's most
"international" holiday. |
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On the first
Sunday of Advent (Dec 1), I showed the movie Gua Sha to my
students, so we had to get a jump on Christmas by decorating our apartment
on Nov. 30. It was a lot of work for these young people, but it was fun
too, and Vivian treated them to American pancakes as a reward for their
effort!
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Dec 8 was Board
Game night (no photo this year, sorry), and Dec 15 was Greeting Card
night. A dozen or so showed up to make personal greeting cards for their
friends. It is always fun to watch them cut, paste, color, glue and
cooperate to create beautiful cards!
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(Upper left)
Students help Michael decorate the Christmas tree. (Upper right), Lynn and
Mercy help Vivian bake cookies for all of our fun nights. (Bottom)
Participants show off their beautiful hand-made cards! (And yes, Zoe
enjoys having students come over!) |
(Upper three)
More pictures of the ladies with their cookies. (Bottom) Every Dec 7 we
watch a film to "Remember Pearl Harbor." On the last Sunday in Advent, we
also watched "It's a Wonderful Life" with a
full house. |
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In the middle of
each Advent event, we pause to light an Advent
candle and talk about its meaning and history. We also enjoy eating
Christmas snacks! |
After we light
the Advent candle, we get our Advent calendar up to date. Sometimes, in
addition to finding part of the "story picture" in each pocket, visitors
also find a treat! |
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Sooner or later,
someone asks about our puppets, and these cherished toys get a few moments
out of the closet! From left to right, the puppets are called Shou-O,
Denali, and Cinnamon. Cinnamon is responsible for Michael and Vivian's
first date! |
We caught these
students (bottom inset) sending a "selfie" to friends via We-Chat or some
such service. We're always glad to hear that lots of similar pictures go
out from our apartment! |
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(top) Christmas
Eve started with a few students joining us to go caroling at our pastor's
home. (bottom) The evening ended at McDonalds, with a dozen students and
friends talking about... |
...talking about
the wonderful program we enjoyed at the packed Gospel Church. Vivian and I
know many of the performers, so we know how many hours they spend getting
ready. They want it to be special because many guests have never visited a
church before. |
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My last classes
(before the exam) were Dec 23 and 24, so we "learned" about this American
holiday by singing, watching Snoopy's Christmas,
and playing Bingo! You can see the prizes, waiting on the front desk for
winners (everyone wins something--but the best prizes go quickly!). |
I've got about
150 students in total. Vivian was there to help out (and take photos). In
the top photo, you see students holding up their Bingo prizes or candy
canes (sent by thoughtful friends in the USA). You see a different class
in the bottom photo. |
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Every
other university I've worked for in China allowed us to throw a big
party on campus for students; I couldn't get permission last year so I
didn't pursue it this year, especially since all of our home activities
plus our holiday "party-class" took lots of preparation time. As you can
see from the above pictures, we stayed busy all month (and I don't even
have photos of the times I led singing at the Bridge, sang or
spoke at the International Church, or did other
things. Vivian was also involved in many things, both with my students and
with ladies from our church. If you are wondering what "church" has to do
with this holiday, well, it is really the CORE! Christmas is really a
celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Other parts of the celebration
entered over the centuries. Many of my students don't realize that "2013"
(or whatever year it happens to be) dates back to "the first Christmas"
when Jesus was born. All over the world, His life "split time" between BC
and AD. If this man was that important, maybe you should
spend a little time finding out why! (See below, or our
holiday handouts, for more resources.)
(To learn more about Christmas, see these Christmas pages on our
website: the traditional Christmas story
(speech),
who is Santa (圣诞老人)?,
candy canes,
Christmas Perspectives (poem), A Mary Christmas
(speech), and the pre-Christmas Advent season.
Also look for Christmas wallpaper
here. You'll also find movie study guides on this website for some
great holiday films: A
Snoopy/Charlie Brown Christmas, Last Holiday,
White Christmas, The
Grinch, Home Alone, Christmas Carol,
It's
a Wonderful Life; Christmas also plays a part in these films:
Ben Hur, The
Greatest Story Ever Told...and several more!)
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