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Well, Christmas in Korea is a relatively small deal. Shops make a little effort, but there was no 'run up' to Christmas, so when Christmas Eve arrived, I was caught almost completely by surprise, and not at all in a Christmassy mood. The mood, however, was given sharp kick in the rear by my activities on the afternoon of the twenty-fourth.
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It all started in the faculty room a few days earlier. Maria, looking straight at me said "Does anyone want to be Santa for the Kindergarten on Christmas eve". I love Christmas, so offering me the part of Santa was like offering candy to a candy-starved kid. It was exhausting. For a start, the Santa suit was incredibly hot, but the energy needed to keep saying "Ho Ho Ho" for 30 minutes is deceptively high. It was great fun though, and as I don't teach Kindergarten, most of the kids didn't recognise me. Although, conditioned to call all the adults in the school "teacher", one of them called me "Santa Teacher". After the Santa adventure, I moved onto my regular classes. According to the schedule, Christmas eve was supposed to be Test Day, but I didn't have the heart to give the kids tests while Mr Choi was going around handing out candy and treats. We played a lot of games.
'The Bad Apple' was serving a turkey dinner, so I headed down there after school and Gumdo. The meal was great, and we followed it with pool and singing along with Christmas songs. At midnight we raised our classes and shouted "Merry Christmas" at each other, then hung around for another hour before heading off to Noribang.
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Waking at around 9 on Christmas day, I walked out of my room cursing whoever had left the balcony open (it was me) and let the apartment reach the approximate temperature of an ice-cube. On closing the balcony door, I discovered that the White Christmas we'd all been dreaming of had materialised. Glen and Jo, who usually go to the beach on Christmas day, being Kiwis, were having a great day, apparantly waking up and shouting "Blizzard". The Canadian Glen shares the apartment with was understandably unimpressed with the mild flurry, and went straight back to bed.
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I had got up at the unearthly hour of 9:30 because I had yet to buy a gift for the Secret Santa gift exchange planned for later in the day. Christmas Shopping on Christmas day would be suicidal at home, but was actually quite pleasant here. I bought the gift at Wal-Mart. My other task was to sort out a dish for the pot-luck dinner. I would have gone with mashed potatoes, but they were considered to be the realm of Marc, who does turn out a mean portion of mash. I had decided, due to the lack of regular cheese in the Korean diet, to do cheese and crackers, and Wall-Mart had a grand total of five different types of cheeses. All of the ECC teachers had turned up at the party by the time we arrived, with the extremely welcome addition of Jo, Glen's girlfriend, who took this picture. Clockwise from the front we have Jen, Stacey, Jena, Glen, Sarah, Marc, Larry and Me.
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We had a few more arrivals, and Stacey organised a great conversation around the room, with everyone describing their Christmas family traditions. It made me a little homesick, but I think the best story came from one of the Americans. His father used to get one of the neighbours to dress up as Santa a few weeks before Christmas and ask them what they wanted. On Christmas eve, half the cookies and milk would be consumed, bells would be jingled outside, and presents would be delivered.
Great food had been provided, and everyone ate their fill before moving onto the Great Present Swap. Names were put in the hat, and passed around. Everyone then had to give their gift to the person whose name they had picked.
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As a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll just show you these five, which represent a vivid five thousand word description of a wonderful experience of giving and receiving.
 
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The variety of gifts was great, with alcohol being well represented, as was body shop products. My gift came from Marc, and Jo got one from me. Stacey brought out the paper and we did some Christmas puzzles, but given the night out before and the full stomachs, the party became one giant cat-nap. I have never been so relaxed and comfortable in a room full of people.
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Our relaxation was interrupted by an influx of people from their party at one of the local restaurants. Here's an idea of how many people were then present in the apartment:
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We hung out for a couple more hours, then headed to The Bad Apple for pool and beer and more reveling. I was only there for about an hour (just time for a couple of games of pool and a cheeseburger) before realising how tired I really was and heading for home. All in all, it was a really great Christmas. The feeling of community in our small island of westerners is sometimes quite amazing.
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Korean Christmases don't just sneak up on you, but they also disappear on the stroke of midnight. Boxing day became just another day, and Christmas was forgotten as fast as it came.