Christmas thoughts and plumbers

I love Christmas time.  We had a great Christmas celebration.  I've now taken down all of the decorations, phew.  I was actually quite happy to have them down.  As festive as it makes it, life seems less cluttered without them;)  

Over here, it was life as normal (as Christmas really isn't celebrated here) yesterday.  There weren't any Christmas carols on, no special lights, everybody went about as normal and only a few people celebrated Christmas.  Inside our flat we were enjoying family, friends, eating lots of good food, opening gifts from near and far and thankful as we thought about the effort made to send parcels, the cards and messages sent and the hope we have.

One of my presents... cupcake socks:)  Very thoughtful.

In China, people think Christmas has to do with "having a happy day or giving each other apples."  So they give each other an apple to signify peace (because the translation for apple in Chinese means peace.)  People want to understand the meaning and want to be part of the festivities, but Christmas is not really a part of their culture.  We tried to give a few little chocolates away to people selling things outside in order to give them some cheer and understanding of what Christmas is all about. 

One woman that we've met wanted us to invite her and her whole family (maybe like 10 of them including children) over and to include them in our Christmas day celebrations.  She's a nice woman but I don't really know her.  We met each other on a train and she insisted that we exchange phone numbers.  I tried to convince her that we could get together after Christmas instead;)  It did take a couple of phone calls for her to accept that.  Her last attempt was to call at about 11:00am on Christmas day and ask if she was coming over with everyone.  My message was pretty consistent, I think she just hoped I would change.  We have lots of people that we wanted to include in Christmas celebrations, which is why we've had about seven!! Christmas parties.  So for Christmas day we wanted it to be a bit more intimate and relax in family and with close friends.  Quite funny though.  

Some friends were quite sweet and one person dropped off flour, rice and soy beans as a Christmas present.  She didn't know what she was suppose to do but she wanted to help me celebrate.     

Today I'm starting a to do list and one of the things I was ready to have sorted was our toilet.  It hasn't been flushing well for ages.  It took a lot of phone calls.  Someone heard my accent and gave me a quote about 100 x's as much as a local.  In the end, a friend called and a man showed up a bit later ready to get things going.  He told us he was 90% sure the problem had to be something plastic... It appears it was due to a bright green lego that was flushed down the toilet.   Our baby throwing things in the toilet and adults flushing them is a bad combination:)  

We are thankful to have everything back to working order!  

Well just a wee hello.  Be blessed in this continued holiday season!  And may He guide your eyes upward and fill your hearts with gratitude.

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading!