Merry Christmas from Snowy Beijing!

It's snowing here in Beijing, a fine light sparkly snow that makes your coat and hat all wet, but is settling into a lovely crunchy white ground cover. But don't worry, a small army of workers will be out early in the morning to remove any traces of the white stuff from main roads and pavements before I've even woken up. Can't leave snow lying on the ground! Oh no! My second Christmas in Beijing has been a lot of fun. I helped out with Christmas music for my church Christmas Eve Eve service. I graded papers 'til midnight on Christmas Eve. Gave my students a practice writing exam (about Christmas) on Christmas morning. And had some friends over on Christmas Night for dinner, music and games. It's kind of weird living in a place where Christmas is just a regular workday. When I ask my students about it, most of them know it's a western holiday, and they mostly know about Santa and presents. But not so many of them know that the main reason for Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We westerners are exporting consumerism very successfully, but the Jesus message is a little harder to get through! The reason for the season is alive and kicking among my bible study group though. We are all away from our families so we came together to eat special food (Thai Red Beef Curry and Coca Cola Chicken and Purple Mashed potatoes) – if not actual Christmas food. My excuse is I don't have an oven! This was topped off with very traditional desserts including Chocolate cake, cream puffs and roasted chestnuts. No fruitcake. Ah well. Some traditions just don't really translate well to China. What a shame... Then we had music and a Christmas story bible quiz. We probably took this 'fun' activity a little too seriously. I guess we are a bible study group. Every question got debated for 10 minutes. What is Ruth's relationship to David resulted in a discussion of how genealogies were written in Hebrew to reflect symmetry rather than accuracy. How many times did angels appear in dreams in the New testament before Jesus was 2 years old resulted in a 10 minute discussion of what constituted a dream, and what constituted a vision. Our non believer guest looked on in fascination at our passionate arguments! It's hard to believe another year has passed. I have just signed another contract and will be here until January 2014. So if you happen to be around for Christmas 2013, brush up your bible knowledge, you can join my team for the Christmas Day Quiz! Next year, we're going to win. Do you hear that Mr P? :) Merry Christmas and God Bless you all!