Christmas Party Scoop

We had 19 Chinese nationals join us for a Christmas party on Friday night. Aimee pulled it off in amazing fashion! She is such a trooper and always goes "beyond the call" to try and love others. What a blessing she is to our family and our circle of influence. I'll "captionize" the pictures to help tell the story. Note that they are not in chronological order.

We brought everyone into the family room for the gift exchange. Everyone was instructed to spend somewhere between $4 and $7 on a small gift. We drew numbers and at our turn, could pick a new gift or "steal" from another. They got a big kick out of this activity. We explained the story behind Christmas and gave out "The Dream of the 3 Trees" book after the exchange. That was well-received. Pray that the 19 seeds planted Friday night grow and that Aimee and I might be used to nurture them.

The girls had fun play barbies with Anna. She had a great time too.
Nathan and Florence loaned us their ping pong table. I had some new lighting installed in the garage and we ended up with a slick ping pong room. And for you players out there, an orange ball on a blue table is my new favorite color combination. (We're used to green and white in the US).
Group shot. Aimee and I initially said that we just had WAY too much food. We revised that to be, "We made enough food to bless everyone with a full bag of take home". Literally, they each got a plastic sack with 3-4 small gladwares with pizza rolls, deviled eggs, chinese food, and cookies. You see some of those take home bags in the pic.

This is a bunch that likes to have fun and this night was no exception.

Our kitchen was packed with food. The piles in the foreground are fruit - watermelon, pineapple, apples and banana. These were a big hit. In the background is the area where we housed the catered food (60 BBQ wings, sweet/sour chicken, and beef with oyster sauce). Fried and white rice was also back there along with Aimee's teriyaki chicken. On the right, covered, are Aimee's homemade pizza rolls. They like trying western style food. Although, it's worth noting that the food line offered both forks/spoons and chopsticks. Every one of them went the chopstick route. Trying food is one thing but crazy utencils is entirely different.

We rented 2 round tables and an additional 12 chairs to accomodate everyone. We relocated our family table to squeeze the round table in. This picture is looking "opposite" the previous one. Anna and Elijah were completely at ease with everyone including Anna wanting to sit at a table with my friends.
The second round table was in the front room and had the younger guys from our group. The average age here is probably 23.

Guo Zhixiang (left) is a great friend from work. He and Elijah really hit it off when he joined us for dinner a couple weeks back. They picked up right where they left off. Guo Zhixiang's english name is "Cloud". When I first heard that, I thought it must be "Claude" but he insisted that it really was "Cloud". I've gotten to the point where I can pronounce his Chinese name, which I prefer anyway, so Cloud is a name the kids can use. He helped Elijah finish his meal. I still haven't gotten Maggie's chinese name down. She's the bubbly one of the group.The kids were showered with gifts. Each received 3 to 4. Elijah got 3 RC cars. Anna got 3 new baby dolls. Our friends really delighted in seeing them open these gifts. It was neat to watch.
Aimee's friend Lisa has lived in Shanghai for 7(?) years and has mastered the egg roll. She made a batch for Aimee and Zhao Jianqing fried them up. They were excellent. Wu Yin was impressed that ZJQ was cooking.....can you tell?? ZJQ came home early with me to help us make final party preparations. He helped rearrange tables, cut fruit, and several other small but critical jobs. We were super thankful. He's the guy that helps me figure stuff out in Shanghai. For example, when I need to know where/how to buy an external hard drive for the computer, I call ZJQ. Anna was also the flower girl in his wedding a few months back.....you could check the archive for pictures.

The last thing I'll say is that many of these folks wanted to know about the people on our refrigerator. We loved "introducing" them to all of our siblings, parents, and friends. They take a genuine interest in our lives and were really inquisitive about many of you.

It's the "Eve of the Eve". We hope you are enjoying this season. We celebrate the birth when God became a man, in Jesus. And we also remember that the story doesn't end with a birth but with that resurrection.

Merry Christmas.