For I know the plans I have for you...: Holiday's

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Our Thanksgiving was extremely low key. Wait... is this Thanksgiving??? that was pretty much my thought on Thursday night with a lot of confusion in my brain because technically it was Wednesday in America and the Chinese of course do not celebrate Thanksgiving so do we observe it on our Thursday or America Thursday? oh the confusion. But I remembered in time to have the girls tell us 2 things that they were thankful for. Unicorns. Of course. Toys. Their blankets. Food. Seems about right. I thought about stealing a couple of theirs for my own!

So the Chinese have a lot of holidays. And a lot of days off. A lot. And they celebrate big. Mainly by keeping me up all night with ridiculous amounts of fireworks that they like to set off right next to buildings. Sounds like we live in a war zone. They have even started to recognize a couple of Western holidays. Like Halloween and Christmas. Actually I think those are the only two that I have seen decorations for since we have been here and let me just say, when I say they recognize them, I mean that in the smallest way. Like there is a tiny tiny shelf with a couple of things on it that look like a Halloween mask or a little red Santa. Anyway, because Kenzie's school is an "English" Kindergarten they had a Halloween party for the kids. Now, there are probably people out there who would think that this is nice, it is great that she gets to celebrate even though we are in China. Ok, probably everyone would think that. But all I thought was 'are you serious? I have to try to come up with a costume for three kids in China? why do these people hate me so much??' haha! It was a party at night so we were all invited and we were all supposed to dress up. The great thing for me was it was on the night that Kyle has a late meeting so it was me and the girls. Ok, let's do this.

Then I discovered that I was out of staples. Ok, now we are in big trouble. Epic failure.

Then my amazing resourceful husband discovered some masks in the store... this was at the same moment I was expressing the impossible situation that I was being faced with while he got to sit in his office and have a 'meeting'. Luckily for me I married someone who ignores my drama and solves problems :)

Yes. I don't know what they are, but they loved it!

Unfortunately for everyone who lived around us these little creatures decided they had to wear their masks whenever they went out and they growled at everyone who walked by. I'm pretty sure that the Chinese stare at us like some sort of zoo exhibit because we are raising strange little animals!

Madi was a witch. Kaylie was a lion and Kenz was a kitty. I had another picture failure and forgot to take pictures before we went to the party. In my defense I was trying to get us all ready to go and out the door on time which definitely did not happen so I was a little frazzled.

So we got to the party, which was something like a big open house idea at her school. The only problem is that the Chinese do not form lines. I could tell you amazing horror stories about being in a 'chinese' line. Unpleasant. You come out wounded. But I will save that for another day. So we arrive. There is a huge group of people in the entry way not moving, and since the exhibit arrived everyone started taking our picture. Now let me remind you, this party was at night, and it was halloween and there really isn't that much to decorate with in China so the best idea they had was to turn off all the lights. But they still decided to take pictures of us, so everyone had their phones out, and there were flashes everywhere. At one point I lost 2 of the 3 kids. Now this used to make me a little nervous, but I've discovered that there are actually a lot of benefits to being the only white people. You can never lose your kids. Everyone knows they belong to you and there is always a crowd around them. Makes it a lot easier to keep track of them. In fact it is actually terrifying to me when we go back to America now because when I lose them, they are actually lost! I mean they look just like every other kid running around! Totally freaks me out.

So, the party theme was Scream. I don't know if it was the only they could get their hands on or if it was actually planned. But every teacher had a Scream mask and the big plan was that they would hide throughout the building and as kids walked through they would jump out and scare them. It was interesting. It worked too. Madi was scared out of her mind! Kenz and Kaylie were speechless and I was just hoping to make it out alive. We finally got through and as we were leaving each kid got 1 piece of candy. One piece. It was pretty weird. I'm not sure that Halloween has quite arrived in China yet :)