Christmas and December: Part 1

Hello all! My apologies for being delinquent on my blogging. Between Christmas pageants, trip planning, moving into a new apartment, and the regular old Christmas shopping, December was kind of hectic.

In downtown Seoul, along the a stream called Cheong-gye Chon they have set up many Christmas lights. Right in front of City Hall is the city Christmas tree and an ice skating rink. It only costs a dollar to skate! And I've not even been yet, dang-it! My friend Eric and I went down there before Christmas to see what it looked like. It's quite nice, actually. There are many commercial decorations here, just like in the States, (this Christmas tree is courtesy of Heineken) but Christmas is celebrated quietly by families here. Thirty percent of the population is Christian, so they do get the day off, but only Christmas Day. People work the day before and the day after and the only reason we have our winter holiday over Christmas is because of the foreign teachers. In Korea the students have all of January and half of February off before they go back for exams. It's the end of their school year.


In Thailand Christmas is not even a holiday. Which makes sense, as it's a Buddhist country. I was told that for Koreans Christmas is a time mainly to spend drinking with friends. It's not really a family holiday, as in the U.S., and it's certainly not as widely or enthusiastically celebrated. There is not the tradition of gift giving, as in the West. They do have Santa Claus for the small children, but many of my older kids (11-13 year olds) complained that they didn't get presents this year because their parents said they were too old.


We had a Christmas pageant for the preschoolers the day before Christmas break. One of my classes sang "Little Drummer Boy" and "Must Be Santa", the other class sang "Let It Snow" and "Holly Jolly Christmas". Now I can finally sing along to those songs too! Santa came around the school and handed out presents. It was fun. The pic below is of the parents rushing to the front to take a photo of the grand finale where all the kids in the school sang Rudolph and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. For my older kids in the afternoon I gave them short tests then candy and we played games. My oldest kids, the ones I like the most, I gave a cookie from my Mom's kitchen- which they thoroughly enjoyed, and a Reese's peanut butter cup that I had my family send to me from the States. Although it was a total waste of four rare and valuable peanut butter cups, I guess the laughs I got watching them eat them were worth it.

They had never tried a peanut butter cup before and I wanted them to taste American candy. I should have known that only an American can truly appreciate the wonderful mixture of peanut butter and chocolate. They took a bite of the cups and spit them out with looks of horror- like I had played a mean practical joke on them. "Ugh!!! Teacher! It's salty! It's not chocolate! It's salty! It's not chocolate! Ugh, ugh!!! Water! Water! Can I get some water?!", they all screamed as they wiped their tongues with their napkins, trying to get the taste off. "I told you it wasn't chocolate!" I was roaring with laughter. No wonder they thought it was a joke. Whatever. Lesson learned. They loved Mom's butter ball cookies though!

Many people ask what the weather is like. So far it's much like a normal winter in Virginia. We apparently had a cold spell that was well below freezing while I was in Thailand. Luckily I only caught the tail end of that! Since then it's been in the 40's. Not too bad. And we've not received any major snow yet. Only flurries.