Xmas Past

My Christmas traditions didn't really change when I moved to China in 2005. It still included eating Chinese food and watching movies. The difference was that the Chinese food was better and I watched movies on pirated DVDs instead of in the theaters (I didn't even know where the movie theater was my first year).

The closest I came to a real Christmas celebration were J.'s first two years in Shenzhen. The first year we tried making as much non-Chinese food as possible, which wasn't much. But J. did make plenty of mulled wine and we had other drinks to keep us amused for the day. The next year was much better because we were both in Nanshan near Carrefour, which had a nice foreign food selection. I had to lend him my large toaster oven so he could prepare most of the food at home. And everyone brought other food to share--we even had a bucket of KFC.

What I miss most about Christmas in China is that everything is open. New Jersey is rather boring on Christmas. But this year we'll go out to Grand Sichuan for dinner. We just have to find another DVD to watch afterwards.