Merry Christmas to all!!!!
Just as you might be having your Christmas breakfast or snooping under the Christmas tree, Ethan and I are here winding down our first Christmas away from family (besides each other of course). I am happy to report that we made the best of our situation, and had a great Christmas.
Last night when we got home from work, (yes, we only got one day off for Christmas Day), we realized that Christmas morning would be a bit more fun if we could give presents to each other. So, at about 10:00 pm we headed downtown to see what kinds of goodies we could find for each other before the stores closed. We split up and it was a one-hour hunt in the crowded downtown Gwangju streets for last-minute Christmas presents. It was really fun, and we actually bumped into each other twice in the span of that hour....the truth is it's pretty easy to spot Ethan here. After the hour we met at a favorite bakery/coffee shop for some hot chocolate, coffee and good conversation on some of our observations of Christmas Eve in Korea. Christmas has a very short history in Korea, and though there are possibly more Christian people here than back home, it doesn't have nearly the same cultural significance. Actually, Christmas Eve and Christmas here are more like Valentines Day. It's very important to have a date for Christmas Eve, and Christmas is spent cuddling on the couch watching movies (this is according to my Korean co-worker). So, as we were walking on the streets there were vendors everywhere selling roses, candy in the shapes of Christmas trees or gingerbread men, stuffed animals, and of course the usual dried octopus type things. We also both saw a guy riding on a scooter with a big white fluffy dog who was sitting on the seat in front of the guy helping him drive. Seriously. We both saw it.
This morning when we woke up we cooked up some good fruit salad and eggs and toast and sang every Christmas song we could think of, then we put in a Christmas CD and started the singing all over again. After that we opened up our little presents underneath our tiny rosemary plant that was pretending to be our Christmas tree. It was quite lovely. Then we called up the family and wished everyone a Merry Christmas. Ethan also got 4 brothers online with a Skype conference call at one point. It was very exciting. We then watched A Christmas Story (Ethan had never seen it, it was so good!).
Our good friends Catie and Jim were cooking a Christmas feast, so we sang some more as we cooked up some mashed potatoes and salad to bring. We got to their house around 4:30 and had a great time talking about "Christmasy" things with the group of foreigners at their Christmas dinner. We gave our taxi driver an orange, though I don't know if he understood us tell him Merry Christmas.
We thought of all of you several times today, and we hope that everyone has a beautiful Christmas!
.....and to all a GOOD NIGHT!