Tag Archives: Christmas

It’s Like a Snow Day for Bureaucrats

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Usually, a text that wakes me up from my mid-morning nap on a Saturday morning would not be appreciated, but this morning’s was well worth the jarring buzz that startled me from my dream of an upset elf taking the place of Guiteau as President Garfield’s assassin. (Apparently, the kaleidoscope in my head has mixed the facts of the book I’m reading with all of the festivities surrounding the holidays, to make a mental movie that rivals the evil clown in Stephen King’s It.)   As I laid on my couch with Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic drooped over my chest, enjoying an actual bit of sunshine coming in our living room window, I flung out a hand to grab my ever-present Blackberry (thank you Department of State) and punched in my fifty-seven character long password, three times, since I can never get it right the first time and rarely the second.  (Fifty-seven characters might be slight hyperbole, but barely.)

Expecting yet another trash text in Chinese, trying to sell me something I don’t want, I was giddy as a teacher when that snow day phone call comes in at 5AM. (Teachers love them just as much, if not more, than the kids!) As per executive order, all consulates will be closed on Monday December 24, meaning I was looking at the start of a four day weekend! (Thank you Mr. President!)

What does one do with an unexpected, extra-long weekend? I started mine by pulling the throw blanket up a little higher and huddling down to read another chapter in Garfield’s struggle against the bacteria that was invading his body, which it turns out was much more fatal than the actual gunshot he took in the back.

Once I rouse myself from the warmth of my blanket cocoon, away from the shafts of sunlight spreading across the rug and the intrigue of presidential assassinations, the rest of the day will be spent lazily getting ready for a Marine-hosted Ugly Sweater Party. We bought our hideous tops last weekend at the local market, so now I just have to get our white elephant gifts wrapped and a peach cobbler made in my Easy-Bake oven.

It may have been touch and go for a while yesterday, but the world did not end, for which I am thrilled, as now I get a four-day weekend. (And thank you Mayans for creating mass hullabaloo amongst the gullible while the rest of us were just glad it was a Friday.) The long-count calendar might be at an end, but the countdown to Christmas is well underway and the goose is definitely getting fat. Cheers to a four-day weekend!

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Where Mother Goose and Lotus Market Meet in the Middle

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Mother Goose is full of wisdom for ages long ago. As a child, I learned that wool from black sheep should be divided between the master, dame and little boy down the lane. I also took precautions when sitting atop a brick wall, because I knew the king’s horses and men would never be able to put me back together again. And, of course, I am now well aware of the dangers of running down a hill with a pail full of water.  While little of this information was relevant to me as a youngster, some if it just went into storage in the ol’ gray matter for the day it might prove useful.  (Between Peace Corps and the Foreign Service, it really is a crapshoot what random factoid might be prudent on any given day.)

Not all nursery rhymes are outdated and out of touch, at least if you are living in the a not-quite-fully-developed country.  For instance,  “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig/Home again, home again, jiggety-jig” is a as much a part of daily life for some in China as swinging through the drive through of the Golden Arches is to some Americans.

Markets (and therefore nursery rhymes) are on my mind today as I decided to do a little last minute holiday shopping this weekend, braving the biggest wholesale market in Chengdu.  The Christmas season is upon us, and while there are more decorations hanging from windows and adorning doorways than last time I was living in China, there isn’t the bustling of the holiday season that I love so much in the US. I knew a trip to the mall here just wasn’t going to do it, so I thought if it is people and a bit of chaos that I crave, Lotus Market on a Sunday morning is the best substitute available.

Since a couple of us were going to go anyway, I opened up the trip to the whole community, making it an official CLO outing. I figured anyone who wanted to jump into the madness of the market mid-morning on the weekend was welcome to join the fray.  Several people quickly signed up, some who had been before and knew what they were getting themselves in to and some who would experience wholesale anarchy at its best for the first time.

After taking Chengdu’s subway from the consulate to the train station, we disembarked to a lovely maze of construction, blocking the easiest egresses from the subway station, but no one blinked an eye as we hopped over mud puddles, skirted the (possibly live?) wires hanging from the poles above us and crossed the pedestrian bridge lined with vendors showcasing photos of guns and tattoos. (I know the deal with the tattoos, but I am unsure what’s going on with the firearm photos. I didn’t hang around long enough to gage their clientele. Just keep moving…)

Once inside the market area, I was pleasantly surprised with the Christmas atmosphere that abounded.  Shops that are usually filled with an abundance of red balloons, wall hangings, good luck knots and all manner of wedding decorations were overflowing with horribly tacky Christmas decorations.  We all enjoyed the motion-activated, sax-playing Santa who could shimmy his hips right along with the best of the Zumba-fanatics. Knee-high artificial trees so fake the plastic was shiny sat in front of doorway after doorway, some covered in plastic bubs and others just joining together to create a miniature forest of bogus evergreens.

Not only did I enjoy a bit of the Christmas baubles and glitter that I had been missing, but Lotus Market provided the remedy for my missing the hustle and bustle of stores during the holiday season. Most of the market is outdoors, with stalls coming off of the main roads, so I got a bit of that “mall” feel. It was a perfect replica, except that malls in America don’t come with overloaded scooters honking continuously as they swerve in and out of the crowds; malls in America don’t have thin, middle-aged men carrying loads of good on their backs that weigh at least half their body weight; (I’m pretty sure these porters rival ants in their ability to haul huge percentages of their own weight.) and malls in America don’t allow for bargaining at decibel levels reserved for jetliners as I haggle over a few kuai while Psy’s“Gangnam Style” competes for ultimate earworm supremacy  with “Frosty the Snowman,” blaring over the speakers setup outside each and every shop.

I came away from the market with an ugly sweater for next weekend’s Marine-hosted Ugly Sweater party, a few stocking stuffers for Thad and a birthday gift for my soon-to-be four-year old niece. (Sadly, I spotted a woman sporting the same sweater I bought for the upcoming party, which remind me of one I would have smugly worn for class pictures in about the third grade. She was middle-aged and proudly wearing the horizontal stripes, stars and bedazzling on the subway that very afternoon.)

With my canvas bag slung over my shoulder like an undersized Santa, overflowing with my day’s purchases (but no fat pig), home again, home again I headed, jiggity-jig.

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Christmas Has Come to Chongqing

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Celebrating Christmas as Peace Corps Volunteers was definitely a DIY project that included the back-breaking work of carrying a requisitioned (borrowed, loaned without permission, temporarily freed…take your pick of verbs), potted tree up six flights of stairs to our apartment for one member of the family and the not-so-painful, but equally important work of creating ornaments for said tree. A towel filled in for the missing tree skirt and the part of the star on top was played by a pictured printed off the internet and colored in with yellow highlighter by yours truly.  In reality, hauling that tree around campus in the middle of the night may not have been worth the back spasms that it created, but it did give our little Gansu apartment a bit of holiday spirit.

Now that we are big-city China dwellers, Christmas abounds, some good and some cheesy, but it is everywhere. The newest mall in town is decked out with pandas wearing Santa hats driving a two-reindeer sleigh and constantly recycling Christmas tunes over their sound system. On the other end of the spectrum, smaller stores are filled with gaudily glittered signs reading “Happy Christmas” and, at times, featuring Santa with a beer in hand.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the random, five-foot tall red and white elf hat that is inexplicably sitting in front of a light bulb store just outside our subway entrance. I don’t know where it came from or for what purpose it is intended, but it currently ranks high on my list of random Chengdu sightings. (The list has heavy turnover, as daily things are jumping up to take the top spot on the roster.)

As part of his job with the State Department, Thad was sent to Chongqing this weekend to represent the US Consulate at an event hosted by the Japanese Consulate to commemorate the emperor’s birthday. I tagged along with him so we’d have a greater presence at the party, and because it sounded great to get out of town for an evening. The event itself was pretty un-noteworthy. It was only an hour and a half long, consisted of a few speeches in Chinese (mine is terrible) and Japanese (mine is non-existent) that I easily tuned out while I checked out the outfits of my fellow attendees, buffets of seafood and sushi (I’ll pass) and a lot of mingling and business card exchanging. I stood out like a sore thumb at this event, filled with Japanese diplomats and Chinese officials. I was like the one black sheep in a herd of white ones, except I was the one blonde head in a crowd of black ones.  The highlight of the event (party is a bit grandiose for the evening) was that we got to meet and chat with the CG of the Japanese Consulate. (Thad may point to the sushi as being right up there for evening occurrences as well.)

But, while the official reason for going to Chongqing was a little underwhelming, the trip was still a great, if short, one. (We missed almost exactly twenty-four hours of Chengdu’s terrible air.)

We stayed at the Marriott in Chongqing, which had fully decked its halls in holiday festivity. When we walked into the lobby, we were greeted with what may be one of the best Christmas trees I have ever seen and by far the most marvelous one in China. The tree was huge and fully decorated in silver and pink. It was a tree straight out of my dreams! Their grand staircases were lined with garland, also accented in the same shades of silver and pink. (Just a disclaimer, I’m not talking Barbie pink here, but rather a very pretty jewel-toned raspberry color that was amazing.)

On top of a tree to make any Grinch smile, the hotel provided me with a first- room service! I’ve never ordered food to be delivered to my room by the hotel before (takeout from a nearby restaurant doesn’t count!), but after the Japanese event, I didn’t feel like changing back into street clothes and venturing out into the chilly and humid Chongqing night in search of food, so out came the menu and its dizzying array of choices (and prices!). I settled on pizza (a true Chinese classic, no?) and then went and enjoyed a steaming hot bath made silky with bath salts (thank you Marriott!) while I awaited the arrival of our late-night dinner. Pizza while snuggled up in king-sized bed with an American-ly soft mattress? It might not get any better than that on a cold December night in China.

It may have been a quick round-trip to Chongqing and back, but I between a bit of market shopping on our arrival and what I’m officially dubbing China’s best holiday display, I’m more than glad we went. With just a little under three weeks until the big day, I can’t wait for Christmas to be here!

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‘Twas The Night Before Christmas– Chengdu-Style

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Yesterday, to complete my holiday-ification of the consulate, I hung (with care!) stockings outside the Marines’ Guard post, in hopes that our community would help fill them with holiday cheer. To encourage others to stuff the stockings, I (re)wrote a little poem you will all recognize, giving it a decidedly Chengdu feel.

Enjoy.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas–Chengdu-Style

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Consulate
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Pol. Officer working a bit late.
The stockings were hung outside Post One with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas (or maybe Ambassador Locke) soon would be there.

The visa applicants were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Vegas danced in their heads.
And a consular officer in his ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a quick, xiuxi nap.

When out on the concrete there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the CLO Lounge to see what was the matter.
Away to the door I flew through the smog,
Through CAC One, out to the guards’ and their dog.

The moon through the Chengdu haze, on the horizon sits low
Gave the same lack of luster as mid-day to objects below.
When, amazed by the sight, I had to stop and stare,
At a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny panda bears.

With a little old driver, who else could it have been?
I knew in a moment it must be Shengdan Lao Ren.
More rapid than visa adjudications, his pandas they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Lun Lun! now, Mei Lan! now, Tao Tao and Zhen Zhen!
On, Chuang Chuang! On, Chi Chi!, on Gao Gao and Gu Gu!
To the top of the consulate! Over the razor wire wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the compound-top the pandas they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I listened with awe,
To the prancing and pawing of each little paw
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Buzzed through Post One St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with factory pollution and soot.
A bundle of toys on his back, for all who would like
And he looked like a peddler, overloaded with goods, just needing a bike.

His eyes-how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like lajiao, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a Zhonghua cigarette he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly too,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of mapo dofu!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
Stockings were filled with brilliant EERs and dream posts to bid on in a flurry,
And giving a nod, past Post One and beyond, he fled in a hurry!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
“Shengdan Kuaile to all, and to all a Wan An!”

 

From Turkey to Reindeer- Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

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The day of eating massive amounts of turkey and carbs is behind us, but it is never too late to be thankful for the many blessings in our lives. This weekend, I am pretty dang thankful that the day of gratefulness is behind us.

CLO-ing (that is the official verb for what I do) has given me a whole new respect for holidays- especially those that are ingrained in American culture. Earlier this fall, I had to make peace with Halloween, letting go of my crotchetiness about too-old kids coming to my door to beg sweet treats, and instead got to celebrate with an array of critters and creatures in homemade costumes. Then, came Thanksgiving, a holiday which I have always loved because I can eat an entire meal of nothing  but white foods, which tend to be my favorites. There is turkey (no dark meat for this girl), mashed potatoes, rolls and maybe some Jell-O for a dash of color.  (My parents were firmly in the “eat-what’s-on-your-plate” camp when I was growing up, and since my dad served up the Thanksgiving plates, there always seemed to be an inordinate amount of yams on my plate. No one wants those nasty orange tubes of gunk, but they appeared on the table and my plate every year until I began the “by damn, no yam” protest, which continues to this day.)

In past years, I was able to sail through Thanksgiving with an offering of rolls and juice, but this year, not only was I right in the middle of the action, I *was* the action.  One of my CLO areas of responsibility (out of eight, in case you were wondering) is event planning, and nothing screams “event” like a sit-down, family-style meal for forty-five folks!

So how does one throw Thanksgiving for nearly four-score attendees? Potluck style! I ordered the turkeys from a local bakery, which would cook and deliver them to the consulate right in time for dinner. (At $92 each, USD, they’d better deliver!) To round out the meal though, everyone in the community pitched in with a variety of dishes and desserts. I panicked (internally) for days about whether there would be enough food. It would be a nightmare to plan such a big meal and have everyone go home without being totally full, because really, we say Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, but we all know it is about overeating until our pants are too tight and we want nothing more than a nap on the couch.

My fears were all baseless. On top of the four turkeys, cooked to perfection, we had all manner of potatoes, veggies, breads and casseroles, not to mention apple pie, pumpkin pie, spice cake and cheese cake. Even after sending as much food home as I could with anyone who was willing to take it, we ended up with enough leftovers that on Friday, we had turkey sandwiches in the CLO Lounge at lunch for anyone interested.

This year, the list of things I have to be thankful is longer than ever. Of course, I have a wonderful family and fabulous friends, and the fact that I am able to live on the other side of the world and still be in touch with them on a daily basis is nothing short of a technological wonder.  In a single day, I am able to log into Gmail and send a quick note to a friend, use the Vonage line at the consulate compound to call my parents, Facetime with my nieces and nephews in Idaho and chat with former students about their college classes on Facebook.

I’m also thankful that Thanksgiving is over, as lovely as it was, because I am ready to hit the ground rolling with Christmas party preparations first thing Monday morning! (The consulate tree is half assembled in my office; I’ve got a growing stack of boxes behind my desk that I plan to wrap to go under the half-assembled tree; I’ve got stockings for our marvelous Marines, ready to be hung; and I’ve got a friend lined up to be Santa for the community party in a few weeks.) CLO-ing will be in overdrive for the next few weeks, but since Christmas is the number one holiday of the year, I’m happily ready to jump into the holiday fracas with both boots.

Good-bye turkeys. Hello reindeer!

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How Bizarre, How Bazaar

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I’d like to announce that Christmas is in the Chengdu air, but it isn’t. (Something is in the air, but it definitely isn’t holiday joy, unless you consider that the muck from Santa’s “naughty list” hunks of coal Christmas cheer.) But, I have discovered that a peppermint hot chocolate from the Starbucks around the corner from the consulate creates a little bit of Christmas in my mouth though, so that is a good start.

There might not be pine scent wafting on the breezes or small town streets lined in twinkling lights, but the calendar tells us that the holiday season is upon us, so celebrate we will!

The holiday festivities kicked off this last weekend with the annual Chengdu International Women’s Club Christmas Bazaar. This yearly event takes over the grounds of QSI, one of the local international schools. Along with vendors from shops around the city, lots of food booths and a rotating schedule of school-kid performances, the few consulates in town also join in the fun. When I took over the CLO job back in June, one of the last things my predecessor impressed upon me was the importance of this event. It is, by far, the biggest ex-pat happening in this town and the US Consulate is expected to be a major participant.

With that in mind, as the pages quickly tore off my summer calendar, placing me squarely in the midst of fall, I was plotting and planning, with the help of some tremendous ladies in our community. Hours of gluing and sticker-ing and bow tying and ink stamping created one hundred lovingly handcrafted holiday greeting cards. (You can read all about that adventure by clicking here.) Many of those same women also brought in handmade goodies for cookie plates or volunteered to help run the booth.

Having been placed in charge of our table at the event which I had never before seen, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best!

Saturday morning dawned clear (qualification: Chengdu-clear) and cool. I met up with a couple ladies and got a ride from the consulate motor pool to the school with my loads of signage, decorations, plates of treats, pies, donated cheesecakes, boxes of imported Washington state apples and bags of cards. As we hauled boxes and bags from the van to our designated area, I had a suddenly flashback of all those summer mornings on the road with my family, selling my dad’s woodworking at art shows across the northwest. Even in the middle of the summer, the air was crisp as we cobbled together our tent of metal brackets and wooden beams, unloaded apples boxes filled with beautiful cutting boards, vases and bowls, handcrafted by my parents. Last Saturday’s goods were nowhere near as impressive as the works of art my dad churned out from our backyard woodshop, but the deja vu was overwhelming.  (About two in the afternoon I was wishing I had the luxury of hiding away from the world, under the tables for an hour or two of solitude and sleep. I loved the forts created by the table clothes, the way they tinted everything orange or green and how I could lay under there for as long as I wanted, listening to people chat about the various pieces, watching all manner of feet wander in and out, invisible to adults, my presence only known by my parents.)

By all accounts, the bazaar was a success. The weather was gorgeous. It was 65 degrees and as sunny as Chengdu ever gets.  (Knowing that I am always cold and thinking that I would be chilly sitting in the shade of a tent for hours, I did what any cold-blooded American would do- layered up. I wore long johns under my jeans, two pairs of socks, as well as a tank-top, long-sleeved t-shirt, hoodie and jacket combo, paired with thin gloves and a scarf. Nearly none of which was necessary. By the end of the day I had shed more layers like hermit crab unloading too small shells.)  Our American Consulate booth made over $600 USD for local charities and I saw a lot of shopping bags headed out the gate with our community members. Success on many fronts!

As someone who usually puts off Christmas giddiness until after Thanksgiving, feeling like the fire chicken needs his annual chance at glory, I’m rearing to go this year. I want to put up our not-quite-authentic Christmas tree in our apartment. I want to put up the brand new IKEA purchased tree at the consulate. And I want to hang the Marine’s stockings by their post with care. It is taking all of my self-control to hold off until Friday morning, when I can officially declare the Christmas season upon us. It’s time to start making moves and starting grooves.  Oh, baby, this waiting is making me crazy!

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Coloring Outside the Lines

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I always color within the lines. The precision and prettiness of the picture depend on it. Within those bold borders I can color coordinate to my heart’s content, mixing a deep raspberry with some dusty fuchsia  and maybe throwing in a splash of watermelon to brighten the scene.(And of course, there will be glitter, if it is an option.) Regardless of the color choices made, all 50 shades of pink will fall neatly within the prescribed outline of the princess’ ball gown.

When I go to a job interview and am asked to name three words that describe myself, I don’t, put probably should, put “rule-follower” on the top of that list.  Sticking within those bounds keeps me sane. In the sixth grade, which I would like to say was just a few years ago, but a couple decades is probably a closer estimate, I got a detention. It was my first and only detention I was every privy to in twelve years of public schooling. How does a sweet, shy middle school girl get a detention when she hardly speaks in class? Jake. It was all Jake’s fault and to this day, I blame him for tarnishing my perfect discipline record. (I had a pretty good attendance record going to, but things came up to break that one as well, very few of which were my own fault. Sometimes it was the flu or an orthodontist appointment. My senior year, the streak was intact, until I got wind of  a Clay Walker concert, which I just had to have tickets for. So, Candace, my best friend since middle school, and I decided to take a morning off from US Government and Geometry and Advanced English to  go stand in line at the ghetto-Albertsons in Caldwell to get tickets. Perfect attendance my senior year? Nope. A concert worthy of hypnotizing the moon? You bet! But, even this seeming swerve from the rules was one that was pre-approved by my parents. I would never have dared to ditch school to buy concert tickets, heartthrob in Wranglers or not.)

But back to Jake. It’s a long story, but the short version is that during music class (one of the least favorite periods of the day for this tone-deaf girl), I had slipped my generic-brand Keds off under the desk. Jake took one and tossed it across the room. He got a stern look and I got a detention. Apparently, because it was my shoe, I was responsible for it. (To be fair, there may have been some nuances to the story that my middle school mind blocked out in attempt to justify my seething-anger over the detention, but two decades later, that minutia has been lost in my gray matter.) This all went down on a Friday afternoon, so I had the whole weekend to fret about getting my detention slip signed by my parents. I just knew they were going to kill me, or worse yet, assign me as the sole-pooper scooper for the llama barn until high school graduation. It took me until Sunday night to pull out the yellow and pink pages of that carbon copy slip. In near hysteria, I handed it over to my educator-parents for their John Hancocks. (Other than trying to tell my side of the story through sobs, I don’t even remember what came of the whole thing. I do think I got out of actually serving the detention by telling the music teacher I had piano lessons that night. Again, for a tone-deaf kid such as myself, thirty minutes of piano lessons is probably a harsher punishment than after school detention anyway.)

What I am getting at is that I like to know that things are being done the right way, and rules help set those boundaries. The control that comes along with and the lack of chaos are comforting, so much so that I tend to create guidelines where none exist.

Arbitrary rules are the name of the game in my world. Thad laughs at my rule-creating but usually goes along with the neurosis, even as he makes a mental note of the craziness. There are lots of little daily-life rituals that just work best if done a certain way. For example, when making a burrito, the order of creation should go: shell, sour cream, beans, cheese, salsa, olives. Thad’s mayhem of shell, sour cream, cheese , salsa and then beans is just causing the world to spin out of control!

Some of the most concrete rules, deemed “arbitrary” by Thad, have to do with Christmas, like no Christmas music/decorations until the day after Thanksgiving and then all Christmas music ends the day after Christmas, with the decorations down before the New Year.  Why all the self-regulations revolving around the holidays? Because I love Christmas more than the Grinch after he stole it, had a change of heart and subsequently returned it. I love Christmas like gym teachers love the Presidential Fitness Awards. I love Christmas like the cockroach currently residing in my kitchen loves crumbs. (I had so many more similes I could have gone with here, but in the name of good taste I veered away from any involving things Jerry Sandusky loves or the love bestowed upon the East Coast by storm Sandy. It is quite possibly too soon to go down either of those literary device paths.) Christmas is less special if it is dragged out from mid-September through early February, as retail America has established as the new norm. Christmas is a season. There is a season for everything. (Feel free to bust out some “turn, turn, turn” at this point.)

China has made me toss this rule into the (hazardously polluted) wind. Today, November 3, I spent the day making Christmas cards. Granted, it was a for a good cause, but a tiny bit of my soul died with each sparkly doo-dad I affixed to the card stock, a miniscule piece of my heart shriveled with each ribbon tied and strategically placed to mask a mistake and an infinitesimal sliver of my mind was blown with each sparkly stocking stamp firmly placed on the project.

But, after spending a wonderful five hours with other ladies in our US Consulate community, crafting to our hearts’ content, chatting about everything from Foreign Service bidding to the challenges of schooling aboard to whether a wallet-gutting trip to the Maldives in February is worth it, I am okay that my in-the-box thinking when it comes to the holidays had its corners nicked, just a bit.

There will still be no Christmas station streaming on Pandora for a few more weeks and no hauling out the artificial tree for sprucing up the apartment for another month, but I made red and green cards bejeweled in silver and gold and life is okay.  Just like I was able to bend the rules a bit to make sure I got prime seats for the dreamy Clay Walker’s first Boise concert, I have a strong justification for the early arrival of Christmas greeting- four fabulous local charities.

But now, I’m back on the Christmas regulations bandwagon…for two more weeks. Until the Christmas bazaar rolls around, at which point I will be down and dirty in the muck of holiday madness. (But, probably secretly loving it more than Mitt Romney loves his tax bracket.)

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No Such Thing as Too Early

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While obsessive-compulsive might be a bit too dramatic, the label of hyper-worrier probably isn’t too far off. Once a small kernel of an idea plants itself in my mind, there is nothing I can do but stew on it until whatever it is has been taken care of.  Sometimes it is a question of whether I left my curling iron plugged in on the bathroom counter, which I then fret over all day long, or possibly it is something as trivial as needing to make a list and check it twice to make sure no one is forgotten in the cookie plate festivities.

Most recently, this ability to worry unnecessarily was employed for the sake of our holiday travel plans. As “Holiday Flight Fiasco” details, there were some issues with arranging tickets home for the Christmas season and Thad did some rather impressive networking to make the trip happen. The fact that I was able to so smoothly book flights with our “won” tickets actually made me nervous.  Was it possible that things were going to go off without a hitch? On top of worry about the tickets not causing any problems, a flight out of Baltimore’s BWI meant a much longer commute to the airport than our usual one-stop on the Metro to Reagan National Airport.

The plan was to use an airport van service to get from Arlington to Baltimore, so in order to schedule that ride, I needed to start at the flight departure time and count my way backwards to the necessary pick-up time. Thinking our flight was at 11AM, I figured we needed to be at the airport a minimum of two hours early since we were flying just two days before Christmas. In my mind I imagined ticket counter lines weaving back and forth, Disneyland-style, as far as the eye could see. Once clearing the first hurdle of checking bags (free when you fly Southwest!), my mental picture continued on to the security check area, where people in various states of undress shoved gray buckets filled with bags, coats, shoes and laptops through the x-ray machine while other people were getting their personal bits and pieces electronically scanned for all in some locked away back room to peruse. Two hours were going to be necessary.

With all of this in mind, I called the airport shuttle company and booked a pick-up time of 7:30 AM. As our travel date neared, I couldn’t help questioning my original timeline. More than once I wrote it out on a piece of paper, counting and recounting the hours and minutes available. Would three and a half hours be enough to be picked up by the van, pick up others also scheduled for rides at the same time, get through bag check and survive the lines at security? Doubtful, my mind told me.

Wednesday afternoon, I decided I didn’t want to lose anymore sleep over this issue, so I once again called the van company, this time rescheduling our shuttle for half an hour earlier- 7AM.  Content that we would have sufficient time to make our flight, I turned my worrying back to more mundane concerns such as whether or not I had remembered to throw all of the used towels into the tub before leaving for class, making the housekeeper’s job just a tad bit easier.

Before we knew it, Chinese textbooks were stashed away, bags were packed and early morning alarms were set. Our shuttle not only came without a problem, but was actually early. We were on the freeway, headed into downtown DC by 7AM. After making two other pick-ups, we pulled up to the flight departure area of the airport right around 8:30AM. I was surprised to see the ticket counter fully staffed, with the Dinseyland-esque winding line being less than two 180 degree turns long. The magic tickets presented nary a problem and soon, very soon, we found ourselves standing in another line, security this time, worthy of being called a Christmas miracle. From the time we walked in to the front doors of the airport to the time we were standing in front of the mystic stack of TVs listing arrival and departure times, less than thirty minutes had elapsed.

It was at this juncture, standing with just our carry-ons slung over our shoulders, checking our gate number that we realized our flight was not at 11AM like I had thought, but it actually left at 11:30.  That’s right. Due to my excessive (and apparently unnecessary) worrying, we were at the airport, ready to go, three hours before our flight took off.

Thad, being unusually calm about the fact that I hauled him out of bed hours before his normal wake-up call, suggested breakfast at McDonalds (pre-flight pancakes are a bit of a morning flight ritual for me) and then some window shopping in the odd array of airport stores.

Yes, we were there stupidly early, but in reality, I was so much calmer from the time I rolled out of bed until the moment we stepped foot in the jet-bridge leading to the plane than I would have been otherwise, so it was all okay. I figure if I can’t stop the hyper-worrying, I can at least manage it through a ridiculous amount of planning and list making. Luckily, Thad has had thirteen years of experience with my lovely quirks and just lets me obsessively organize and plot as much as necessary until the mental chaos is calmed. Be still brain, be still.

“C” is for Cookie, That’s Good Enough for Me

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Now what starts with the letter “C”?
“Cookie” starts with “C”!
Let’s think of other things that starts with “C”!
Uh. . .Uh. . . Who cares about da other things?!

-Cookie Monster

If Cookie Monster just added “Christmas” to his list of “C” words, that would be good enough for me.  I figured there was no better way to celebrate the holiday season that to marry these two fabulous “C” words and get my bake on!

The idea of a mass-baking day came to me a few weeks ago in the midst of Chinese class.  There was a point in class when one classmate was really struggling with a grammar point, so while he and the teacher went through a series of sentences using said point, I wisely used that time to make a list in the back of my notebook of soon-to-be cookie recipients.  It didn’t take long for the list to grow from a handful of people to the point where hundreds of cookies would be needed, but that just added to the fun of what I shall dub “Koo-Koo for Cookies Day!”

With a few other moments of not following along with the ever-growing vocabulary list, I had not only a receiver list, but an equally long list of goodies to be created.  Scheming complete, it was time to put the plan into action.

On Saturday morning, while it was a brisk thirty degrees outside, I bundled up and headed to the closest grocery store.  This journey requires me to cut through a shopping center, a mall and a parking garage. Bundled in my winter finery, the outside portions of the trip where quite comfortable, but that comfort in the elements translated directly to near heat stroke inside the buildings. Between puffy coat, scarf and hat, my grocery cart was more outerwear than it was food items.

The first annual (annual implies there will be future occasions…we’ll optimistically assume such an event will again take place, but next time in Chengdu) Koo-Koo for Cookies baking list included holiday classics such as gingerbread cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies and holiday sprinkle doused sugar cookies.  To round out this diabetic induction, I also got the fixings to make chocolate pecan treats.  Shoving aside my unwieldy pile of Arctic-ready clothing also stacked in the cart, I made my way to the checkout stand where I quickly calculated that spending an extra $1.99 to purchase what is possibly the world’s largest canvas bag was a much better deal than losing all circulation to my extremities, which is surely what would have happened had I looped numerous plastic bags over each arm to schlep home.

Gigantic reusable grocery store tote slung over my shoulder mirroring Mr. Claus’ upcoming ventures, I made my way back through the parking garage, the mall and the nearby shopping center, feeling the wrath of the overheated buildings.

With dawn breaking on Sunday morning, I excitedly got up to begin the cookie construction process.  Dough was prepared. Cookies were created. Some were rolled in sprinkles of various holiday motifs (red and green for the Christmas revelers, blue for those lighting menorahs this time of year). Cookies were baked. Cookies were cooled. Cookies were stacked high on plates dotting what little counter space is available in ye ol’ mo-partment.

Six hours later, I successfully pulled the last of the sweet goodies from the oven. The results included two hundred cookies plus one hundred chocolate pecan treats, minus the various items that Thad occasionally wandered through to “taste-test.”  While it may be a horrible flashback to middle school math problems, the sum of the day is easy to calculate- deliciousness!

Once the delightful goodies were complete, the lack of counter space again reared its ugly head.  Without our dear floppy-eared Basset hound Mabel to make her move, it was easy enough to expand into the entryway, where snowman-esque winter plastics plates (the not –so-distant relative of that lovely summer plastic ware peddled by Target when the warm weather arrives) were strewn across the floor and piled high with scrumptiousness and covered over in holiday-themed Saran Wrap. Shiny bows topped off each platter, making the final product not only tasty, but festive as well.

Christmas came early at FSI this week!  There is no better way to greet a Monday than to pass out fifteen plates of holiday cookies. I had to laugh, when I wandered out of class during the afternoon break, I saw my cookies in the hands of nearly every person I passed in the hallway. Everywhere there were  cookies in hands and smiles on faces. It seems Koo-Koo for Cookies day was a success!

(This little boy is Julian, the son of one of my Chinese classmates. Cute kid and a cookie is the holidays at their finest.)

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12 Days of Christmas- FSI Style

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Filed under Travel Musings

12  Days of Christmas- FSI Style

On the first day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
An overworked iPad Pleco app

On the second day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the third day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the fourth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the fifth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the sixth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the seventh day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Seven students a-swearing,
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the eighth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Eight laoshi-s a-correcting,
Seven students a-swearing,
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the ninth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Nine uses of “le”,
Eight laoshi-s a-correcting,
Seven students a-swearing,
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the tenth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Ten Area Studies lectures,
Nine uses of “le”,
Eight laoshi-s a-correcting,
Seven students a-swearing,
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Eleven pounds of textbooks,
Ten Area Studies lectures,
Nine uses of “le”,
Eight laoshi-s a-correcting,
Seven students a-swearing,
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
the State Department sent to me
Twelve holiday memos,
Eleven pounds of textbooks,
Ten Area Studies lectures,
Nine uses of “le”,
Eight laoshi-s a-correcting,
Seven students a-swearing,
Six indistinguishable characters,
Five hours of class,
Four dreaded tones,
Three toiling classmates,
Two daily shuttles,
And an overworked iPad Pleco app