Happy Holidays!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season. I had what the best holidays I could have asked for considering I'm away from home.

December was packed with tons of activities, some related to the holidays and others just coincidentally in the same month. It sort of felt like a month-long celebration. The first and second weekends of December were filled with my trips to Tainan and Taipei, which I wrote about in my last two entries). The holiday festivities really began with the third weekend in December. Almost all of the ETAs went to the home of AIT's Kaohsiung branch chief for some wonderful holiday baking. As soon as we walked in the door it looked and smelled like Christmas! There was the most beautiful Christmas tree decorated in red and gold, and the house smelled like gingerbread. We headed straight for the kitchen and got to work rolling out the dough for sugar cookies and sneaking balls of chocolate chip cookie dough as we scooped them onto the baking sheets. Chris and Jan had planned a lovely dinner and movie watching for us, so our baking was interrupted by the catering staff who actually made dinner right before our very eyes. We had the most delicious salmon, roast with gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, sauteed veggies, pasta salad, and real Caesar salad with real thick strips of bacon for dinner. We all crowded around one of the coffee tables in the living room (there were plenty of other tables, we just wanted to be cozy), squeezing onto loveseats and sitting on the floor. We had a Christmas toast, and a visiting student from Iceland who was also celebrating with us lit the advent candles. After seconds (I think we all went back for more!), Chris's mom split us into pairs so that we were each responsible for singing two of the 12 lines in the song "Twelve Days of Christmas." Shana and I were "5 golden rings," easy to remember but more difficult to sing, and "12 drummers drumming." We all laughed and laughed, forgetting when to come in, what our lines were, etc. I think the funniest part was Chris's dad singing "9 women dancing" instead of "ladies." When we decided that Christmas caroling was not our forte, the ETAs moved in to the family room to watch The Polar Express! Dani, Shana, Vicky, and I immediately headed for the heap of floor pillows and curled up next to each other like little babies. The others sprawled out on the couches. After the movie, which was fabulous and put us all in the Christmas mood, we chatted for a while over cups of deliciously rich Ghirardelli hot (dark) chocolate topped off with whip cream and mini marshmallows. When it was time to go home, Jan sent us on our way with goodie bags filled with the cookies we had baked and the rest of the cookies and brownies that she finished while we were all watching the movie. It was such a perfect night.

Late that evening, Jessi, Kinki, and Angie, the first friends I met when I arrived in Taiwan, took me out to a late-night restaurant for some snacks and brought a cake to begin the series of birthday celebrations that would follow. We didn't have any candles, but Angie was adamant that I blow them out, and when I wasn't positioned close enough to the imaginary candles, corrected me until I was. Unfortunately, we lost the rest of the cake (and our appetites) to a trail of ants that came in from the window and down the wall, but it was a lot of fun to sit and chat, especially since Jessi is studying in Tainan and doesn't make it back to Kaohsiung very often.

The next day all of the ETAs woke up early to meet our host families and some of our co-teachers for a day trip to Pingdong organized by the Kaohsiung City Education Bureau. We learned an aboriginal song and dance ourselves, and then went to watch the professionals perform many of their traditional dances.

And then the holidays! I think I had about four birthday parties (and four separate cakes!), and my family at home wrapped up birthday and Christmas presents (cute froggie wrapping paper for birthday and assorted festive paper for Christmas) and sent them to me so that I received them on the 22nd--perfect timing! Some of the teachers at Wenfu planned a birthday party for me after school, and I went along with it being a surprise even though I had talked to Peiwen and Julianna about it beforehand. Sophia was supposed to keep me after class for as long as possible since I teach with her last on Mondays, and she turned out to be quite effective at her task. She simply said something like, "I'm supposed to delay for as long as possible, so don't leave right away after class." Hah. You'd have to meet Sophia to understand, but it is so her. On the night of my birthday the other ETAs and I met at New House, an Italian restaurant right behind our apartment, for my birthday dinner and I got two bouquets of birthday roses (that's right, two!). It was nice to have everyone together, and after we finished the coffee mousse cake that I sort of bought by luck, we went over to Apt. C to watch White Christmas. After that my roommates and I came home to do our final night of Secret Santa, which wasn't so secret but we was carried on in good humor anyway, and I opened my birthday presents.

I didn't have to work on Christmas morning, so I was able to skype home and have them watch me open my presents here. After work we all went over to one of the other apartments to have a fairly traditional Christmas dinner. We ordered a turkey with stuffing, gravy, and a bottle of wine from a nearby hotel, and then each contributed something else. Gered, one of my roommates, made delicious mashed potatoes, a few of us ran out to get rolls, Billy brought dumplings (what would Christmas in Taiwan be without dumplings?), Rebekah brought hot cocoa and Baileys (yum!), and I brought over the gingerbread man kit that I got from home. We chatted while we ate and watched a movie--it was a simple celebration, the way that felt most like home to us.

The Saturday after Christmas I celebrated my birthday with Julianna's family. Her son Steven had his birthday three days after mine, and her husband Frank's had been two weeks prior. We went to Lotus Lake, not too far from Wenfu, and had a picnic lunch by the lake. There was Domino's and fried dumplings, cake, pudding, and we brewed fresh tea. Her entire extended family came, so we sat under the shade of a sort of Weeping Willow tree, chatting, playing with the babies, and napping. The weather was perfect that day, and it was the most relaxing afternoon.

For New Years Eve, one of my students and her family took me to a nearby mall with thousands of other people and we watched popular singers perform until it was time to ring in the new year. There was 3 minutes of amazing fireworks starting at midnight, and it was a pretty awesome feeling--the first time I've ever been in a crowd like that for New Years (normally I watch the ball drop on TV). We are in the midst of a four-day weekend, so I've made lots of plans to have meals with friends and take care of errands, etc. My roommates are all gone, so Leo and I have the whole apartment to ourselves. My friend Chel joked that I should let him run loose. I'm sure everyone would come back to a little trail of presents around their rooms!

It seems 2009 has started off well, and I think it's going to be a very good year. I wish you all a wonderful new year filled with much opportunity and good memories to look back on when we come to the end of another year.

Love,
Nicki