Christmas Celebrations 2015

Christmas this year, even more than other years, felt like I was working double-time. Not only did I teach about Christmas traditions in my classes, but as in past years, I continued the tradition of making Christmas piñatas to celebrate with students. However, this year Teo was not around to help me and most of my students were already busy with many other meetings and classes and tests, so I ended up making piñatas with the freshmen students who I don’t even teach at first, then later arranging another time to make piñatas with some of my students. It ended up being a lot of extra work on my part (along with my normal class load and other responsibilities) and I didn’t even have a friend to share the candy costs, but it was still completely worth it. I was glad for the chance to meet the freshmen Spanish students and it was definitely worth it to continue the tradition. Even the foreign exchange students were able to join in and help us, which was a first.

There were also a number of other Christmas parties to attend and prepare for that lasted about the span of two weeks. We had a small Christmas party with my team and our Chinese tutors, another with all of the foreign teachers, another which was actually a birthday party for 3 of my city teammates, a normal celebration the morning of Christmas with just my team, and a final party with the local fellowship. Overall there were a lot of parties, but I was thankful that they all went well and I was glad to be able to help prepare and attend each one, even though it adds a much bigger load to the holiday season.