Christmas in Korea was a bit different than in the U.S. First, it is viewed by most Koreans as a romantic holiday. Typically, children get one or two gifts in the morning and their parents go on a date in the evening. Our church had a Christmas party; on Christmas. In the U.S. that wouldn’t fly very well, but it worked ok here.
It was essentially a slightly shortened church service, except that we sang Christmas songs (first/only time this year) and afterward we ate various foods and spent time chatting. And we had a gift exchange, close to the same level as a white elephant gift, except that the items were desirable things, not farcical gifts.
We had a good time eating and chatting with our friends there. We also played a couple games, organized by one of the Americans at our church. One was a series of slides on the power point that were pictures of various “Christmas” images and things we associate with Christmas time. For the other game, Jason read a line or two from famous Christmas songs and had us say the name of the song that went with the words. It was a lot of fun. Of course, the Koreans thought it was too hard, and most of us Americans thought it was too easy.
For Christmas I got my wife the most romantic gift I could: a blender! That really is what I got her, but I would like to note that she did want it and was/is thrilled with it. She got me a puzzle and a model of a castle. The castle is about the size of two regular-sized study Bibles, and is really neat. I enjoyed constructing my castle;-) We haven’t done the puzzle yet, but it is of a nice sailing ship, probably a clipper.
Two days after Christmas we had our first snowfall. Jenn and I were going out to buy some groceries and as we stepped off the elevator we looked and saw big, white snowflakes falling and a white walkway outside instead of the usual green. It snowed all that day, and we enjoyed it. Happily, the busses and other vehicles seem to have a good grasp of how to drive in the snow and were also driving very slowly. I didn’t see any cars skidding or sliding around on the streets, although I did see evidence of a possible accident at one point, but no confirmation.
New Years was just another day for us. We didn’t have to work either the day before or the day of, which was nice; especially after working on Christmas Eve. Jenn and I had some well planned menus and had shopped accordingly and we had a great, relaxing break from work. On New Year’s Eve we flat out missed the moment. We were both doing our own thing when one of us looked at the clock and realized it was 12:40am . Despite the fact that New Year’s is a holiday here, all I could get out of my kids about it was that they were going to their grandmother’s house for it, and some said they were staying up late.
I am presently looking for my next employment contract as ours end in two more months. Our hope is that I can get work with a university, which is both a nice job here and will give me experience that I can use when we return to the U.S. , where I hope to become a history professor. Once I have my job lined up, then Jenn will try to find a job near the university. Please pray for this so that we can get this moving quickly. I have applied to a few universities, but at this point I have not heard anything back.
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