Christmas in a Chinese Hotel

Despite our hopes, as it turns out, we are indeed going to spend Christmas in a hotel in China. Not the most inspiring of settings, we discovered. No tree, no decorations, no Christmas cookies. So I wrote to Santa and asked him if he would be able to find Vivian's stocking if we went on a little holiday to warmer climes. As it turns out, Santa will have no problem with the change of addresss.

We leave today for three days on Hainan Island, the "Hawaii of China." Since Bruce's schedule is going to be pretty tight for the next few months, this might be the last time we travel in Asia until...well, the next time.

Our travel goals for Hainan Island are: 1. Get warm. 2. Swim 3. Have a cocktail 4. Relax 5. Forget that our families are celebrating Christmas back home, so we don't get too homesick. 6. Put out snacks for Santa and his reindeer, so they will be sure to find us.

On an unrelated note: I have quite a lot of blog posts outlined in my head, but Chinese Internet makes things a little hard. Our upload rate is 100Kbps, which is about as fast as my first home dial-up connection, 15 years ago. So the photos and videos aren't uploading successfully. Its pretty sad because the video of Vivian "performing" in her school's Christmas pageant are really quite sweet and adorable (in an awkward, shy, new kid in the school kind of way). Maybe when we get into our house things will improve.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, and here's a little tiny gift for you: hope it makes you giggle.