A Very Korean Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

So we've finally made it to our whopping three day Christmas vacation. I think this is the first time that I've really missed life at university and the three week Christmas vacations I used to get. But no matter, such is life, and we've definitely made the best of it.

For the past three weeks we've been getting ready for Christmas and now it's time to just relax. The tree is trimmed, the house is decorated, the party was moderately successful and all of our shopping is done. As well, we managed to annoy dozens of children by forcing them to sing Christmas carols in English for days on end. Nothing says Christmas like 12 Korean children trying their best to master Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Check it out for yourself:




Awww, isn't that cute. They worked pretty hard and probably enjoyed singing a lot more than the usual week of workbooks and repetitive talking drills. If only we could get them to say "Christmas" rather than "Chris - a - mas".

This particular class is one of my favorites so Joanna and I threw them a little Christmas party yesterday. Except instead of turkey or apple pie we ate chips and drank the Korean version of 7-Up (Chilseng Cider).



Good times indeed. You can make out my mangled writing on the blackboard in the background. The little guys probably have better printing skills than I do.

Anyway moving on... the other day we were downtown shopping and we saw a version of the Christmas nativity scene that was unlike any that either of us had seen before. Determined to capture said item on camera we went back last night and grabbed a shot of the wonderful scene for you, our beloved readers.



It's as though they wanted to remake the classic nativity scene with cartoon characters. It reminds me of the "Buddy Christ" line from the Kevin Smith film Dogma. The virgin Mary looks like Mariah Carey and one of the wise men looks like the dude from the Burger King commercials (I'm fairly certain that it's him doing some Asian moonlighting like all of the famous actors do).

I wish we could buy a smaller version for our place. It would go great beside the three foot snow covered tree we have.

So as I mentioned before we've been working really hard to capture the Christmas spirit in a land where's its rarer than a hug in the Harper household (ba-dum-bum-boom). In order to do this we've been watching Christmas movies non-stop. We started out just watching the really good ones and now we've dipped into the bottom of the barrel. Sure things were good when we were just watching the A-list films but the it wouldn't be the same without such classic films as Ernest Saves Christmas, or A Smurf's Christmas.

We've probably watched every Christmas movie you can think of. I'm not kidding either, we have every thing from the Muppets, Tim Burton, and Disney. Hell, we have about 10 versions of a Christmas Carol (Bill Murray's Scrooged is still my favorite).

The point of mentioning this is to let you know that it's worked. We're geared up and ready for the big day. We may be thousands of km's from home and we may not have a turkey roasting in the oven, but it's Christmas and even over here it's still a pretty special time.

So to everyone who mailed us a card, left a comment on our blog, gave us a phone call, sent us an email, or mailed us a care package, thank you so much. I can't imagine how much more difficult this experience would have been without all of you and your support.

So from our tree to yours:

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Cheers

Shayne (and Jo)

P-S - One day until C-day.