Stories about China: 祝你圣诞快乐。。。

So, as everyone in the West knows, Sunday was Christmas. Stranded in the Far East with no family, no festive recognition from the locals and certainly no Christmas meats, it was set to be a bleak celebration of the birth of Christ. We were happily rescued from this outcome, however, by a Canadian friend called Alex. Having been away from home many a year, even spending one Christmas solo in a random city in China, he understood the lonely hearts of the fellow 'the-chinese-don't-celebrate-christmas-so-we-have-no-holiday-and-are-therefore-stuck-in-china' westerners.

This is Alex

We had our doubts about how the day was gonna pan out, for various reasons. But it turned out to be a very lovely day indeed. Indeed. First of all we had to arrange some presents to participate in what will now be referred to a 'the vicious game' [wait for the explanation], as well as some treats to share with the group. For the treats we just brought a leftover crate of beer [don't ask] and some oranges [most foreigners in China haven't had sight or sound of fruit in about 1 and 1/2 years], which went down quite well. Out presents were a wallet [with a cold-weather face mask], a Tea set and an incense burner, bought by myself, Serrena and Holly respectively. Just a quick side note, Alex's house is pretty frickin' huge. It has two floors, several bedrooms 2 bathrooms and a bar. Yes, a bar. He is the only person who lives there. This is relevant to the latter part of the story.

So after we got there we were anti-social for while, you know, took a short nap whilst the other guests flowed in. Then we found out there was Bailey's and cheese cake, so we got a little more involved in the celebrations. After much chatting and socialising it then became 'Vicious Present Swap' game time [sorry, I changed the name]. So, the idea of this game is that all the presents go under the tree and people's names are picked out of a hat one by one to get a present [see above picture for name-picking example]. However, if you like a present that someone else has already picked, you can steal it. I know, right? Such an American game, just stealin' other people's sh*t like that. I got an alright present out of it, some mini-Chinese bowling pins and a push-out paper dragon from Muji. Serrena very unslyly stole back the incense that Holly had bought and, after having to choose a present for the third time, ended up with the very cool mini-Guzheng.

I know no one knows what a Guzheng is,
so this is a picture of a girl playing one

After the presents and eggnog were all finished and the first people started trickling out to go to their overpriced [though admittedly western] dinners, people started to find different ways to pass the time. After a few comments about how awesomically large Alex's house is as well as the innumerable amount of cupboards it contains, the idea of hide-and-seek followed by Sardines came into play. It was a wonderous afternoon of play - I think the fact that it was a pyjama party helped the regression into childhood.

In the evening we didn't really have a any sort of proper dinner...actually we just went to some overpriced Japanese restaurant with about 4 other people. Although later on I went to a bar [where Alex plays guitar, he also has a beautiful voice] and that was nice.

Aaannnd that was my Christmas. Hope everyone who's reading this had a considerably better one! Here, have some pictures, and possibly a video.