Holiday thoughts

After a few people expressed curiosity in our living situation here in Beijing, I thought I would post a little bit about where we live. 

Location, location, location!! Our apartment is not that fabulous (the school pays our rent though, so I'm not complaining!) but the location is really convenient. We are a thirty second walk from a subway station and right next to a bus stop, which I didn't fully appreciate until the weather got cold. Once we come out of the warm subway tunnels, it doesn't take very long to get home and we are right on a main road which makes catching taxi's pretty easy. Shopping is also pretty convenient, there is a huge mall across the street and I live right next door to a grocery store and if I need imported stuff, it's only a 15 minute walk to get to the import store. 

As far as our actual apartment goes, it could be much, much worse. We have a real western toilet, not a squatter (thank heavens!! That might have been a deal breaker for me. I might have turned around and just headed home if we had a squatter. So far, we've avoided using them in public restrooms and hopefully it stays that way. Using those takes some practice!) and a we have a real bathtub instead of just a drain on the bathroom floor. 

Our kitchen sometimes feels like it belongs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because the counters are so low and the fridge is teeny but you get used to it.

We have three bedrooms, which is plenty of space for our little family. 

Our "balcony"

This is W's little play area, I put down some foam puzzle pieces to make a softer place for him to sit and play with his toys. We have only wood or tile on every floor which is not the most baby friendly stuff!

W was following me everywhere in his walker while I was taking pictures, it was so cute! He always gets stuck in this doorway because the walker won't fit.

Some Christmas thoughts:

I never really thought I would miss the "commercialism" of Christmastime, but I actually do. Since Christmas isn't a holiday here, there really are no indicators of the season. No music, no Christmas sales or commercials, no decorations, no lights, and no snow. So I've been playing my Christmas playlist constantly to remind myself that even though it doesn't feel like it, it's still the holiday season. So next time you're tempted to groan when you hear "Jingle Bells" on the radio for the hundredth time, just embrace it. It could be worse! 

We did find one stall at a market that was selling Christmas decor, but it was all very cheapy and corny. And it had Easter, Halloween and Valentine's stuff all mixed in because they can't really tell our holidays apart very well. Makes sense since they don't celebrate any of them. It probably all looks the same to them. I got a good giggle out of seeing gory Halloween masks next to the snow flakes and mini Christmas trees!

Since Christmas isn't a holiday here, Joel only gets one day off from work. But for Chinese New Year, he'll have a four week break. I think we're going to wait to give each other our Christmas gifts until then so we aren't planning on giving each other anything on Christmas day. I think this will be a unique chance to really only focus on the meaning of the holiday since we won't have any of the usual Christmas chaos to navigate or gifts to buy and give. I'm actually really excited to have a quiet Christmas with just the three of us. It will be hard to not be with our families though. We definitely miss them and we're sad that we aren't home for W's first Christmas. 

It's also been freezing here. It doesn't seem fair to have all the coldness of winter without the pretty snow. (Snow is pretty infrequent here because of the elevation but we did get a little bit earlier in the season and it was chaos because no one knew how to drive in it.) This week it's barely gotten above 15 degrees in the day time and it's a damp, wet cold and the wind blows like crazy. Our radiators have had a hard time keeping up, we've had to wear a few extra layers around the house this week.

We both have callings in our branch now, too. Joel is in the Elder's Quorum presidency and I get to be in the nursery with six little cuties. There are a couple kids that speak Chinese and English and sometimes they will ask for something in Chinese and I'll have no idea what they're saying! So I have to tell them to ask me in English. Most of those toddlers know way more Chinese than I do. They're super cute. 

Also, our neighbor just unexpectedly moved out so we inherited a BUNCH of stuff. Bedding, dishes, and silverware. We were sad to see her move but happy to give her stuff a home. We now have more than 4 forks which is fabulous. Now I just need more bowls. We only have two. I just hate to spend money on things that we will only use for the next year and a half! But, bowls are pretty important when you have a husband that loves cereal as much as mine does so I should probably just bite the bullet and buy a few more.

That's pretty much it for now. I hope you have a Merry Christmas!!