Christmas Fun

Christmas Time in Taiwan might surprise you. Most Taiwanese might not understand nor celebrate the real reason for the season but they sure get into the secular part of it!  The town was decorated in lights and bows at malls, hotels, apartment buildings, and other largely populated areas.  Costco sold out of Christmas trees  within the first week of December!  Not many symbols of Christ's birth though.  I couldn't find manger scenes, although I have a better idea of where to look next year, because they do exist.  Our church did put on an awesome live nativity complete with costumes and an old horse that looked like a donkey for Mary to ride.  They even had a lift to raise Angels overhead.  It was pretty great.  Todd and I helped out with all the younger kids who sang in the beginning.  

This was our first Christmas without family other than us, and although we missed our families tremendously, we did have a pretty good Christmas complete with egg nog (thanks Laura for the powdered stash) and a trip to the beach (pics to come later).  

Decorating the Christmas tree:  We brought many of our personal ornaments here even though some people recommended otherwise.   Our christmas ornaments are such a critical tradition that we just couldn't do with out them.  Elli loved putting up all the ornaments so much and she was so careful with them.  Throughout the holidays, we were able to keep Sienna away from the tree most of the time, but she did end up breaking one ornament.  Yep, who needs to worry about ornaments breaking when they are shipped overseas when you have a baby crawling around!!!  

Other "Christmas trees": So we call the area we live in Taipei "little Vegas."  We live next to a castle hotel that has torches that light with fire when you pass, an iconic ferris wheel, a wedding house with multicolored, flashing lights next door, and next to that a WEGO hotel which is an hourly rate hotel.  You would think this might mean we live in a sleezy part of town, but quite the contrary.  Our area is pretty uppity and has way too expensive restaurants for a country that insists it has cheap good food everywhere.  But our little WEGO is not ashamed of their image, and they proved it with this huge tree display right on the corner across from a very popular mall.  Yep, those are plastic bras and briefs on the tree and on each side is silhouettes of couples embracing or kissing.  Luckily my kids are too young to find anything wrong with this tree.  Completely showing that at least some Taiwanese don't really know much about the reason for the season!

 Here is another area of town we went to that was all lit up with lights and had a christmas tree light display. Santa made his way to the very top.  They also had an igloo made out of recycled water bottles.  Blow up the pic to look closer if you can. It was pretty cool.

Cookie Parties: We were able to participate in two cookie parties, where you bring a bunch of cookies to share and then take a few of everyone else's.  The first one was at the director of AIT's residence, held by his wife.  (So basically the Ambassador's wife in any other post).  An invitation was sent to all AIT families including many who are Taiwan citizens who work in administrative positions in AIT.  Now I must say that I feel like I have immediately loved many things about Taiwan and Asian culture, other things I am learning to love, other things i can understand why they might love them, but still other things I will never love nor understand.  The inability of people who have grown up in Asia to make a decent cookie is astounding and therefore falls in that last category.  They have sugary breads and sweet beans, but their cookies are hard, usually overbaked, and not nearly sweet enough.  Or store bought, even from a bakery, which often is still a recipe for underwhelmed.  They often look alright, maybe even good, but don't be deceived like I was.  Not only do these people sadly not know how to make a good cookie, but they amazingly don't even seem to recognize a good cookie when they taste it.  About 70% of the people who brought cookies to this AIT "cookie exchange" (if you can call what they brought cookies" were Taiwanese or grew up in another Asian country so I was way annoyed that I gave away all my good cookies for their gross ones.  You might think I am harsh, but my supplies for good baked goods are very limited and therefore to waste them is just plain reprehensible and down right depressing.  And really their cookies were really not good at all. I kept trying to pawn them off to anyone who visited while still not letting Elli eat all of them (she has yet to learn which cookies are worth it and which ones aren't).

Our other cookie party was a little more of a success since it was with the playgroup that I take the girls to.  This one was better since many of us grew up in America or Canada and understand what a real cookie is.  We have a couple Taiwan ladies in our group though and they brought store bought cookies or fried packaged snacks, so the trend there was not broken.  One of my friends brought oreo balls dipped in chocolate which were sooooo yummy so that made me very happy and almost made me forget my woes of the previous cookie party.  It was tons of fun playing with all the kids too and Sienna looked beyond adorable if I do say so myself.

Our little Christmas Elf

Elli found a play phone that somebody brought and she just had a grand old time laughing and walking and carrying on with whomever it was on that phone with her.  I love the very satisfied look she has in the second picture.  Just priceless.

Our last party was the AIT Christmas party and it was a lot of fun with good food, friends, and Santa of course.

                      Susan and Young Li's Family                Chris, Lilu, and Sophie- downstairs 

                                                                                         neighbors and great friends

SANTA PICS!!!  Elli was totally happy with Santa this year, unlike last year.  I read her a lot of books about him and anyone who gives her candy is her friend (yah, stranger danger in that regard not going so well, especially since everyone and their dog gives Elli candy here in Taiwan!)

Yah, Sienna was not a fan.

Christmas Eve: Trying to carry on the tradition of new Christmas pajamas Christmas Eve.  Elli loved her new princess jammies and wears them each night if they are clean.  We also reinacted the Christmas story with a felt nativity and sang Christmas carols.  Short but sweet Christmas Eve.  We did have bratwurst and sauerkraut for Christmas Eve dinner, since we all know that is a FAMOUS Carr Christmas tradition, right!! :) Inside joke there, sorry.  

Christmas Morning: Stockings, Presents, a lit tree, two excited little girls, and tired parents, all the makings of Christmas fun.

Sienna is at the stage that she loves taking stuff out of other things, so she really loved the stockings!!
Elli loved the chocolate eggs that had a mini plastic princess inside.  So exciting.

Grandparents gave the girls fabulous gifts of princess dress-ups and princess barbies.  I requested this for both girls since Sienna tries to take whatever Elli is playing with and dressups will be in her future before next year. Elli has worn a princess dress and shoes every day pretty much since she got them and she carries her barbies around everywhere.  

Santa brought them musical instruments (piano and guitar) which they both love to play.  

We got to talk via skype to the majority of our family members too, so that made it feel like we were sharing the day across the globe! 

For Christmas Day dinner, we invited our good friends the Li's over with their kids and two other single guys in our building.  I chickened out and bought a turkey from an awesome American style bbq place near by and it was slow roasted and really good.  It was very expensive but worth it since my oven is too small, we left to go out of town the next day, and even uncooked turkeys here are expensive anyway.  I did make the other traditional fixings the day before including stuffed celery, blueberry jello, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce (ok this was canned - isn't opening up the can making it), etc.  Guests brought additional items, we made wassail and eggnog, the kids played together happily, and we all had a grand time together.  It was fun to get to use my nice china, too.  

You can see from the picture above that while I was distracted, Elli tattooed herself with lots of Christmas stamps. Yep - she had a good time! 

And that was our Christmas.  Quiet, and not crazy, but still good.