In My Christmas Era

Happy Holidays, everyone! My humblest apologies for this delayed post. It has taken me about 2 weeks to figure out why/ how no one has been receiving email notifications whenever I post, but it has all been resolved. So without further ado, here is my official Christmas post (let's just pretend you are reading this end of December and not mid January)!

I hope this season has been magical and festive for all of you wonderful readers. Christmas was a far jollier occasion for me, especially compared to last year. I had a beautiful little tree, custom stockings, and matching couples pajamas. What could be better?

While Christmas is slowly spreading its Santa paws here in Korea, there is still much to be desired regarding festive atmosphere. This meant I had to do my best when it came time to teach about Christmas to my students. On Christmas Eve, I was decked in a green sweater and red cardigan, Christmas inspired earrings, Santa socks, and red and green nail polish on my fingers. If I was going to be at school the day before Christmas I was going to make darn sure I was in the holiday spirit. In true Christmas spirit, I showed my students a picture of young Emma Teacher sitting on Santa's lap (sans smile) and some fun movie clips from Arthur Christmas and Elf.

In addition, I put extra care and consideration into the games I would play with the students since I wanted to have just as much fun as them. I bought some super cheap stockings and cotton balls for a stocking relay race. I had the students line up at the back of the room with 2 students holding spoons. They would then scoop up one snowball (cotton ball) and race to the end of the room to put it in their team stocking. If they dropped the snowball they would have to start over, and boy, did some of these kids drop their snowballs. For starters, some students would scoop up 8 snowballs which, of course, would proceed to fall off the spoon, much to the frustration of their teammates. Then other students would fall just shy of dropping the snowball into the stocking, and said snowball would drop to the ground right underneath the stocking. All this being said, the kids seemed to have a blast running back and forth in the classroom alongside some cheerful Christmas music.

Blurred to obscure their identities

Once my students had the majority of their zoomies out, we played Pin the Nose on Rudolph. Putting my lackluster drawing skills to the test, I hand-drew a poster of Rudolph. I had 2 students from each team come to the front, close their eyes, and spin 5 times in a circle. They then had to try and place the red magnet in the middle of Rudolph's face. I had many students land a perfect pin on their first try while others didn't even place the nose on the poster. And then there was the one student who gave Rudolph 2 testicles after class when he thought I wasn't looking (major eye roll, and a small giggle, over here). I think it was the most fun hearing the groans from teams who could only sit and watch as their one member majorly goofed up on placement. Oh, the joys of being a teacher.

Christmas Day itself was a much quieter affair. I slept in until about 9 (after first getting up at 7:30) before turning on the first of the three Lord of the Rings films. I recently finished reading the trilogy and would highly recommend it to those interested in fantasy novels. However, I don't recommend having to cram all 3 into a 2 week period because of library checkout length limitations. Anyhoo, I somewhat forced Tom to watch all 3 of the movies for the second time this year. Sorry, not sorry.

Later in the day, I was able to talk briefly with the fam, but it was still Christmas Eve on their end. Curse the 15 hour time difference! After the Facetime, Tom and I opened our presents. His parents had sent us some yummy British treats, and I was especially keen on the Christmas Pudding Fudge (think fruit cake meets spice cookies). Deee-licious! Tom gave me a beautiful necklace, some Pokemon cards since that is our newest obsession, and a baking dish for the airfryer that would see some major use that very evening. I gave Tom a paper apple made out of X-Men comics, a Calcifer toy from Howl's Moving Castle, and some Fiber One birthday cake brownies. Definitely a good haul this year.

I-Spy baby Emma Teacher on Santa's lap

Having somewhat starved ourselves for dinner, we were quite excited for a traditional Christmas dinner. Every Friday night I make a roast dinner with mashed potatoes, chicken, green beans, and Yorkshire puddings. This dinner was essentially the same except for the addition of stuffing. Oh my goodness it was just about the best meal I have ever made! Tom was an excellent sous chef, and it was even more impressive that all I was working with was a small airfryer, microwave, and one stove burner. Just going to toot my horn over here on the accomplishments.

10/10 meal

We then ended the night with a phone call to Tom's family to watch his adorable niece open her presents and finished our month-long Christmas watchlist with the absolute classic that is Love Actually (we've been watching Christmas movies ranging from Die Hard to Home Alone to cringey Hallmark holiday romcoms). I forget how amazing that movie is until I watch it again for the nth time. While it is certainly not ideal to celebrate Christmas away from family, it was a nice holiday, and one day break, for myself and Tom.