Christmas in Beijing

It's kind of difficult to get into the "Christmas spirit" when you live in China and are married to a Chinese man. We have a beautiful (fake) tree which he bought after our other fake tree was destroyed (by me). We have wrapped presents, which I of course wrapped, which are hiding under the desk so that Ollie won't try to throw them around the house for fun. I even sometimes play the Amy Grant Christmas and Motown Christmas albums I have always loved but still, it's not exactly feeling a lot like Christmas. Maybe I'm feeling like this because, for only the second time in my life, my parents and my sister and her family are not here anymore to celebrate with us on Christmas day. Maybe I'm just too old and grumpy to start feeling festive without the help of lit up houses and constantly played Christmas music. I look forward to when Ollie gets excited for the season, when I can share the Christmas story with him and he'll understand it and be in awe of it. I look forward to have a few more kids who can help Ollie put on a Christmas performance for us like my siblings and I did every single year no matter how old we were. And someday, perhaps we'll be able to celebrate Christmas in America. I do feel blessed, though, that this year Ollie and I are going to visit my parents in the UAE. I also feel blessed that despite not knowing what will happen with potential jobs, that God has a plan for me and is in total control even when I feel completely lost. Once I know more I'll tell you about these opportunities and whether or not they work out.
Here's an amazing shot of Ollie with the Chinese Santa who didn't want to hold him because he was afraid he would cry and make a scene. I wasn't having it. He got a donation for charity and was going to sit there and take it, damnit. Ollie wasn't that bad and didn't scream or anything and we got our little memory.


This is Ollie with his best friend, Berkley. We went to Joy City Chaoyang to see if there was a Santa since I had seen a pretty amazing display during the day. There was no Santa but people lined up to take a picture of their kid (and themselves) on this heart chair. So of course we did too. This was taken on the stairs while we waited.

December 10, 2011 as documented by our new camera, the Canon S100V

Cookies and More Cookies

When I was growing up, I would see my mom bake different cookies and then hide them until it was time to make up a plate of assorted cookies to give away or to use as refreshments at a party. Wow, refreshments. I sound like I'm a hundred years old. Anyway, I would always find out where they were hiding and sneak cookies all month. I was good about being sneaky, just ask my sister. She can tell you when I ate all of her Easter candy one year. I guess things haven't changed too much over the years as I still struggle with self-control. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, I loved how there were always so many different kinds of cookies and even though she gave a lot away, there were always plenty to go out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. My favorites were the peanut butter balls- I have yet to have a pb ball that could rival those ones we grew up with. My dad loved the cream cheese date rolls and I think everyone loved the Russian Teacake cookies. Last year I attempted to also come up with a cookie collection for Christmas and I did pretty well. The cookie swap we had didn't hurt one bit. We're doing it again this Saturday so I'm excited for that but in the meantime I'm getting to work on building my cookie collection.

A few days ago, I followed the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate mint chips for double chocolate mint drop cookies (or something like that) and they were awesome. Last night I started making some spice cookies and they're pretty good too. The dough is supposed to be in the fridge over night so the spices' flavors come out even more so I'll make the rest of the cookies today. In the spirit of trying to make my Christmas cookies more... Christmassy, I discovered that some food coloring added to sugar could make some great colored sugar to sprinkle on the cookies.I also added cinnamon to the red sugar which will be awesome on top of the spice cookies. Pictures will be coming soon...

Thanksgiving and Christmas Trees

I can't even count how many times I have started an entry saying something like, "It's been way too long. I've been meaning to start writing regular blog entries and I'm starting now!" Well, no promises but I'm going to try. I've been bad about posting pictures of my son online so my family in the US and the UAE can see how he is growing. And boy is he growing! He's more and more independent and can play in his room while I type around the corner on my laptop so that's another reason I can do this. I CAN do this. My sister has an awesome blog where she posts recipes and gorgeous pictures of her daughter and I've enjoyed it so much over the past year and am inspired to try to do the same.

Before I talk about Thanksgiving, let me just update you on Ollie. His favorite breakfast food is eggs. He can easily finish two or three scrambled eggs and since I've begun to wean him 2 weeks ago, he's enjoying a cold glass of milk more as well. He also loves crackers and bread and after talking to others with kids his age, this is the norm. He loves ice cream so every time we go to the grocery store across the street and pass the Coldstone Creamery, he has to go inside and look through the glass at the different colored ice creams and make a little whining sound. Don't worry, Mom, we're not feeding him ice cream all the time but on occasion let him share some with us when it's time for a treat. If we had good ice cream over here, I'd be eating by the gallon for all of my meals which is a good reason that I don't live in the States right now. He loves "The Wheels on the Bus" and "My God is So Big" and he loves it when I pray for him before he goes to bed. We aren't quite sleeping through the night regularly although last week there was one night where he slept through the night. I think I can count on one hand the number of times he has done that and I would only use 2 or 3 of my fingers. I left a pot boiling the bones of a chicken to make some chicken broth and when I got up at 5am this morning to get Ollie some milk, saw that the pot was black and the burner was still on. Amazingly enough, since the fan was on, there was little smoke and the smell of burnt pot stayed confined to the tiny kitchen. Unfortunately the pollution was so bad int he night that that was all I could smell in any of our rooms. Obviously it is time to buy some serious air purifiers. Stat.

So last week was Thanksgiving and our good friends Wes and Kasha invited us over for a vegetarian meal. Wes is a master when it comes to making fake meat and he came through again with a tofurkey. Yes, that's right. He made a "turkey" out of tofu and it was good. Oh so good and healthy! Everything was delicious and I was so full I couldn't even fit any wine although I certainly tried! I ended up just feeling disgusting but I kind of expected that would happen. My contributions to the meal were some sickly sweet sweet potatoes, dry stuffing (I later realized I had used two bottles of sage and no thyme to season it which explains why it was off this year), a pumpkin cream cheesecake with a ginger cookie crust and salted caramel and pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese and maple frosting. Yes, I know. They were good. I will try to find the recipes and post them soon but in the mean time here are some photos. I didn't get a chance to get a photo of the cheesecake once it was cut on plates but it wasn't very pretty anyway as it was too soft, but it tasted good! I swear!

Caramel and Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting


Anyway, as soon as we had celebrated Thanksgiving, my plan was to put up the Christmas decorations. The decorations are tacky in the Chinese malls and obviously we all live in apartment downtown so there are no houses covered in lights so decorating our apartment is the only way to really feel like it's Christmas sad as that sounds. We had a fake tree from my parents which we used last year but as soon as we had it decorated, I knocked it over and then broke the top of it off. It's a long story, well not really, and it doesn't need to be told here. The main poibnt is that I ruined the tree so we had to throw it out and get a new one. The new one that my husband bought the next day was pricey but it's bigger and nicer although much harder to set up than the last one. Anyway, it's done now. It's beautiful at night and Ollie loves it (probably). So far our cat has been entirely uninterested which is obviously great.

Now for the photos.
Ollie decorating the tree with Baba

This is Ollie and I right after we decorated the first tree. It was perfect...

This is what it looked like without the top part after I had started taking off lights and ornaments.

The final tree all decorated and pretty

Party in Chaoyang Park

Birthday Jess and Cupcakes

I've been meaning to get back to blogging for a while now. My sister has an awesome blog where she posts recipes and photos of food and Lucy. While it's hard to live up to that, I have really wanted to try and do something as well so that my parents can see Ollie grow up over the next year. It's not easy being a family that lives in 3 different countries but luckily we have the internet now and with blogs and video skyping, it doesn't feel quite as far as it would otherwise.

We are on the tail end of an amazing summer in the US and in 11 short days it'll be time to head back to Beijing. I've been in Beijing since 2004 but I'm still struggling to call it home. It sounds cool and exotic to tell people here that I live over there but what I really crave right now is a stable and uneventful life in small town USA, raising Ollie. I'm not looking forward to being back in the real life and having to figure out jobs. It's going to be hard going back to public transportation and people everywhere you look. I'll miss being able to open the front or back door and stepping out onto a patio or grass and looking out over the trees to the lake. I don't care how low the water is- I'd give anything to be able to drive down to the lake and stumble over the rocks and find my way into that water. I wouldn't even care that there were slices of bread floating past me. I want to write about all the fun stuff we've done while in the States but I don't have the energy to do it so I'll post some pictures instead. Enjoy.