I have been been absent from blogging for awhile. My move to Wuxi wasn’t as I expected and I have become derailed. The one great thing are my students, so I decided to write a blog about them.
I have always given my students Christmas gifts every year since I started teaching in 2001. I have been a classroom teacher so the max gifts that I bought is 25. This year I teach the third grade and there are two classes per grade. So I have 54 students. I also learned later that I was the first teacher actually buy them presents. The other foreign teachers didn’t bother and just gave them cards. BORING!!
I just feel buying presents are are thoughtful, also it makes me feel the Christmas spirit. I haven’t had a real Christmas since my mom died so and no one gives me gifts anymore. So choosing gifts for my students hold a special meaning.
Taobao (the Chinese Amazon but even better) provided me all of their Christmas gifts and I put them all in stockings. The stockings were very large. I decided that I wanted to bake them Christmas cookies. Most of my students never had Christmas cookies before. I was excited to share this Western tradition with them.
Thus begun The Great Cookie Caper. I recently acquired a used toaster oven. One thing about China is there aren’t ovens here. Well there are but they aren’t commonplace. This is the source of all my cooking and baking needs. I never baked cookies using a toaster oven, so I had no idea how long it would take to bake cookies for 54 students. I decided to make 4 different types of cookies Snowballs, Sugar Cookies, Cranberry Cookies and Gingerbread cookies. I alternated between Taobao and Western supermarkets to get the ingredients.
I ended up not making the cranberry cookies because it took me 6 bloody hours to make cookies. I was a cookie baking machine. In the end I made 156 cookies. I could only bake one tray at a time. I didn’t even think about this. I was all night baking and packaging cookies. I only got two hours of sleep. Then I had to take the cookies to school and add them to the stockings.
While the kids were practicing for the Christmas concert, Santa Amber struck! I put the stockings under the tree. It was so fun and really put me in the Christmas spirit. Then I returned to help with the rehearsal.
When they returned to the classroom, I heard their excitement from my office. So I went in they were so excited. Their home room teacher knew in advance that I was going to do this. The kids were playing with their toys and eating their cookies. One girl came up to me with tears in her eyes and said a heartfelt thank you.
I think my biggest and best Christmas present was the happiness of the kids. They even shared it the cookies with their parents who asked me for the recipe!!!
Dec 29, 2015 @ 22:12:59
Oh, that is awesome. You are fantastic. Everybody should get a Christmas stocking (said the atheist).
My mother made Christmas special, too, and it was never the same after I lost her.
I would write more, but I got something in my eye. And my other eye.
Dec 29, 2015 @ 22:33:07
Same here, I am not close with the rest of my family, so I am more like a lone wolf.
Jan 13, 2016 @ 04:43:13
What a lovely person you are. Brought a huge smile to my face about you giving lovely Christmas present but a bit sad to hear that since your mum passed you don’t celebrate Christmas. But 156 cookies. Wow!!! Well done.
Jan 13, 2016 @ 12:03:02
I miss my mom around the holidays. It is the hardest time of the year for me. I guess the kids help but on the actual holiday it is quite lonely.
Jan 14, 2016 @ 05:12:55
I can only imagine your heartache my dear. Thinking of you.
Apr 04, 2016 @ 20:16:10
Hello!! We all miss you! Bring back more blogs !
Jul 08, 2016 @ 07:01:58
Just been going through a stressful time. I am almost ready to blog again.
Apr 09, 2016 @ 17:00:31
Seems like you’ve been having a lot of fun!! 🙂 I really miss China right now! Agness of http://etramping.com/jobs/
Apr 10, 2016 @ 05:01:38
You can always come back. China is a very special place.