Our Christmas Day!

Our Christmas was absolutely fabulous! It was a wonderful first Christmas in China. I had invited our ayi and driver to come early, knowing the kiddos would be up pretty early. Both ayi and our driver came to our house around 7:30-8:00 am. I had bought some special donuts to munch on, as a breakfast treat. We all got up early and my mom and I arranged a couple of platters of cheese, fruit, crackers and meat...to counter balance the sugary donuts. ;) We brewed up some coffee and tea for everyone, placed it all on our dining table and went to town on the presents!

Allen played Santa and handed out all the gifts. I had bought a couple of special things for both our ayi and driver...so nobody felt left out. Neither of them have experienced a true "Christmas" from the previous families they worked for in the past. So, I'm sure it was quite a shock to witness the gift unwrapping "mayhem" that is our traditional Christmas morning! There was LOTS of wrapping paper and plenty of gifts all around...strewn all over the place! What fun! haha

After we opened gifts, we all filled up on tasty food and warm beverages. Hey! I just happened to have some high quality tea I could bust open for both ayi and our driver! haha They loved it!


After a casual morning of eating and playing, we decided to head to the Pearl Tower and go up to the top! What fun! We were 350 meters high in the sky and could see many of the more famous buildings throughout Shanghai. We had a couple of architectural buffs in our group, so it was lots of fun. It's not often you can see the TOPS of so many other tall buildings!

We stopped for a quick lunch at Subway and headed right next door to the Shanghai Aquarium. Our guests have not seen it, so it was LOTS of fun for them to witness, first hand, the artistic wonder of this particular aquarium. It really IS amazing! A must see here in Shanghai!

Everyone was pooped out from our day's excursions, so we headed home and ayi had dinner waiting for us as soon as we walked in the door. We ate some delicious dumplings and tofu soup...and then played with our new toys before bedtime! :)

The only way it could have been a better Christmas, is if the rest of our family were here to help celebrate it. We have never missed a Christmas together and the separation was definitely felt by all of us! We miss you!