Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
After returning from the Xuzhou Home of Hope for Thanksgiving we started decorating for Christmas.
Last year Joey had the honor of putting the star on top of the tree because he was the youngest, so we decided….
to let our eldest child, Hollie, place the star on the tree this year!
Picture on left shows most of our children gathering around the ping pong table to find their Christmas ornament. Danny showing his ornament.
Last year we were able to celebrate Christmas in our play room and thought we could try it again this year. After counting all of our children, staff and friends who would be participating, we realized that our playroom was way too small and moved the party into our dining hall. Unfortunately, we realized this after we decorated our tree…thankfully Jonathan (our translator)and Ben were able to move it without everything falling off. We also took our family picture before moving the room, which only confirmed we needed to move it…the room was a bit of a squeeze:)
(Front row left to right) Lester, Anna, Sarah, Tyler, Eli, Thomas, Mark, Ellie.(2nd row left to right) Jake, Danny, Chris, Michelle, Ben, Gene, Zoey, Noah, Joey.
(3rd row left to right) Emma, Graham, Hollie, Jaxin, Debbie, Wendy, Gabe, Eddy.
(Back row left to right) Jenny, Mary, Cherry and Lily are 4 of our 6 housemothers, Jonathan is our translator, Lisa and Becca are our other 2 housemothers, Tammy is our cook, and Nicky is our teacher.
As you can see in the pictures below, everyone had a lot more room and our dining hall looked wonderful.
We actually needed to celebrate Christmas the weekend before because our children had school on Christmas and had a three day weekend the week before. Most of China does not celebrate Christmas like we do in the United States; their big holiday is their New Year.
Our Christmas morning we started off with welcoming in some brothers and sisters that preformed several dances and songs.
The rest of the day we prepared for the night activities.
Michelle fixing Wendy’s hair.
Unfortunately we were a little busy to get too many pictures of behind the scenes stuff that went on. For instance, all of our housemothers, even the ones who had the day off, helped cook our dinner. We had several dishes, normally we eat one dish and have a bowl of soup for dinner. We also had the Naayers family (some friends from a nearby college) come to celebrate with us. They helped us set up tables, decorate the dining hall and stuff candy and toys into the children’s stockings.
We started the festivities with a very nice dinner in our classroom.
After dinner was over we started the party with singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
The Zhang family have been Michelle and my (Ben) friends from the first day we moved to Pingyu and they brought us a cake.
Then we began our talent show.
The Naayer family (pictured above with Jonathan) started the show off with singing Silent Night and Frosty the Snowman.
Picture on left is of Lily(left) and Jenny(right) singing Chinese opera and the picture on the right is of (left to right) Mary, XiuFeng (one of our housemothers who had to quit last year to watch her grand daugter) and Cherry singing a hymn.
Our kindergarten boys sang a Chinese song they learned from school. (left to right)Joey, Thomas, Danny, Chris and Jake.
Our girls sang a Chinese song about Grace. (left to right)Anna, Emma, Sarah, Hollie, Debbie, Wendy, Ellie, and Zoey Click HERE to see the video!
(left to right)Noah, Mark, Eddy, Gabe, Graham, Lester, and Gene sang a Chinese song about Glory.
Jonathan played the guitar and sang a English song with me and the Naayer men backing him up with moral support:)
(left to right) Jaxin, Eli and Tyler (our three sons) danced to a song about the 3 kings.
The last act was Michelle and I dancing to a swing music version of Jingle Bells.
We finished the night by talking to the children about the reason for the season before passing out their gifts. It is truly amazing to see the joy and excitement of children hearing about the Christmas story for the first time. It was even more awing to hear the joy of the children who knew the story from last year telling the children who did not know it this year.
All of us from the Pingyu Home of Hope wish you a very warm and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Posted: December 19th, 2011 under Uncategorized.
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