It is Christmas Eve and Santa came to town at school today! And by Santa I really mean Nick. That's right, Nick dressed himself in a red Santa suit and played Santa for all of our preschool and kindergarten children. We baby powdered his beard and stuffed his belly with blankets. The Korean Teachers set up "Santa's Workshop" in one of our empty classrooms. They decorated the walls with fake brick, built a fake fireplace, had "snow" all over the floor and a Christmas tree next to a giant armchair. They had candles and Christmas lights and even a moving light up polar bear. It was too cute.
What we found to be absolutely wonderful was that each parent sent to school a gift (THE Santa gift, in fact) for each child. The room was full of presents, all divided up by classroom, with each kid's name on one. Nick as St. Nick got to personally deliver the coveted Santa present to each delighted child as he bounced them on his knee and made them smile. It was so much fun to watch all of the kids we love so much have their Christmas moment while with Nick.
Most of the children realized right away who "Santa" was, but Nick did his best to be a convincing Santa. He would not let a child have their present until they addressed him as Santa, and told him if they were a good little boy or girl in the past year. Some of our most rambunctious children became oddly quiet and shy at the sight of Nick in Santa clothes, but for the most part all the children were in giggles and loving every minute of their time in "Santa's workshop".
We also had our Holiday Concert today. Each class learned a song and dance to present to all the other classes today. It was so adorable. They also were decked out with props and costumes. Again, the Korean teachers set up the library to be our stage, decorating the room with glitter, balloons, streamers, and a backdrop of Christmas trees. We took videos of everything and have an abundance of photos. All of the kids did so well performing! We've been practicing our songs with our classes since Thanksgiving week, so it was wonderful watching them give their final performance. My class sang "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and Nick's children sang "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth". They were so so so cute.
Now it is Christmas Eve, also the Eve of our Thailand vacation! We are very happy to have the 11 day long vacation, and extremely excited to go to Thailand for 9 days. We are also sad, though...sad that we will not be with our families this Christmas. We are glad that we were able to send gifts to people back home and that they too were able to mail us boxes full of presents. We are looking forward to opening everything (some things have already been opened in our...or maybe Nick's...impatience, haha).
Tomorrow, on Christmas, we are having many of our fellow teachers and friends over to the apartment for a big Christmas lunch. I am making roast beef - in our toaster oven no less - with roasted garlic and rosemary. I also have glazed carrots, steamed broccoli, sour cream mashed potatoes and sauteed zucchini and peppers on the menu. Friends are bringing Tiramisu for dessert, chocolates, fruit platters, garlic bread, a salad, wine and probably some more treats...we should have around ten people over, so it will be a nice get together. I believe that Christmas should be spent with friends and family, and if we can't spend it with our family at least we will make sure that none of our friends are alone on this special holiday. Then we get onto an airplane at 8:00 pm and land in Thailand four hours later...we can hardly wait!
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