Christmas time in the City

Christmas Day dawned clear, bright and cold. We’d spent Christmas Eve with our China family feasting on dumplings prepared with all-day fanfare by our Chinese friends and delivering plates of homemade baked goodies that we had whipped up for the workers on campus. Christmas morn we found stocking stuffers outside our room door and then left our small gifts at the other doors as we crept out of our still, sleeping building and headed for downtown Beijing.

It had been a busy and engaged week as we celebrated the end of the session with a Christmas party with students, class dinners and exchanged long emotional goodbyes with students following the Closing Ceremony.

We spent the day wandering around the city with no real destination or plan other than to stick close to places and routes we consider familiar. In the Dazhalan Business District south of Tian'namen Square we ambled between the outdoor stalls and the warmth of real stores as we tried to make peace with a stiff wind. We were grateful not to have to purchase anything other than street food.

We walked up the main thoroughfare in front of the Forbidden City and took in the smattering of holiday decorations on the way to Wangfujing Street. The pedestrian walk through the busy commercial district was studded with tall, festive Christmas trees and other holiday regalia. There was an excellent outdoor display of photographs chronicling everyday life in China over the last 30 years.

We ducked into one of the large, warm malls for a holiday dinner of noodles and rice, a little window shopping and then treated ourselves to coffee drinks. We lounged in overstuffed chairs, sipped our drinks and enjoyed the English language reading material and responded to a barrage of holiday text messages from former students. The sweetest sounding Christmas music played throughout the mall.

Up the street we visited the foreign Language Bookstore, where we found a great picture dictionary, and browsed Krista’s favorite Beijing Olympic Store. Along the way we encountered numerous scrawny “santas,” both Chinese and Anglo as well as male and female.

After dark, we detoured on the way to the bus and visited the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube. The Olympic Mall was ablaze with colored lights, Christmas trees and holiday decorations. The Nest and Cube pulsed in changing colors, while visitors took pictures and vendors hawked kites.

We caught the last bus home just in the nick of time and, after a quick stop at the bakery, successfully found a driver in Changping to take us back to campus. Our building was quiet, save for a few hardy souls still playing cards. Tired and sore from walking, we eagerly set the alarm to wake early to talk to family and friends back home. Safe and warm, we drifted off to sleep agreeing that God had again blessed us with a most perfect Christmas.