Chaoyang Christmas

This year will be my first Christmas that I am not celebrating with my parents at their home. It will also be the first Christmas that I am celebrating on the other side of the globe. The last few years I haven't been all that enthusiastic about the holidays. I became disillusioned that Christmas was solely for shopping and that the true meaning of Christmas was lost around the time I turned nine.

If you would have asked me in June if I would be celebrating Christmas this year I probably would have shrugged 'don't know'. I would have asked myself, "Do I really want to teach my daughter at the tender young age of ten months about the commercialism that is Christmas?" In North America it seems that traditions fall to the wayside and the true meaning of Christmas gets lost somewhere between the shiny paper and the colored lights. I thought that being in China would be a wonderful excuse to have nothing to do with the holidays.

I was wrong.

It's not that Christmas doesn't exist in Beijing, but strangely enough the Holiday is celebrated without mentioning Jesus (religion is not encouraged in China). Since Beijing has many foreigners there is a Christmas rush, but it consists of cheap lights, tacky cardboard Santa faces and creepy ornaments that look like Santa is half melted. I'll admit I was surprised to be greeted by 'Merry Christmas' signs here and there around the city that reminded me of the holiday so far away and even more pleasant was that no one was bombarding me with advertisements to get my Christmas shopping done or informing me how to avoid holiday stress. HOLIDAY-STRESS, isn't that an awful oxymoron?

So where did I find the true meaning of Christmas in Beijing? In the children of course. Teaching at an International school means that we have to teach the children about Christmas. It means that there are Christmas parties and Christmas crafts. It means that there are Christmas carols and visits from Santa Claus. This year alone I have told the story of St. Nicolas to my class, dressed up as an elf and danced on stage, made countless Holiday crafts and sang Jingle Bells about fifty times while the children in my class ring bells. At home, my husband and I decided to get a little tree and we decorated it with cheap 'Made in China' lights (they broke the second time we used them) and little melting Santa ornaments. The look on my daughter's face the one and only time we lit the Christmas tree made my heart jump and giggle. So there it... the children. They seem to love all that is red, white and snow and between my own daughter and my little two year old students, I have found that Christmas is just really about sharing joy.
And so, I suppose that Christmas is a holiday that my daughter will learn about and celebrate. I will do my best to teach her about the beauty of Christmas and I hope that she will love Christmas for what it means and not what she gets. For now, I am going to make my daughter her first Christmas stocking and Santa and I will fill it with joy. Merry Christmas!