Christmas!

Obviously Christmas in Beijing is a little more subdued than we are traditionally used to. That said the local shopping mall did have some festive displays but there was a distinct lack of the normal bombardment of Christmas music - a good or bad thing, you decide. So it was that the big day kinda crept up on us a little bit. I had only taken the one day off work and left all my present buying to the sunday beforehand. Not such a problem as there was little sign of any rush on the shops. Mind you it first required negotiating some shopping time by myself since weekends have become very much family time together. But with presents in the bag we were set and ready to go.
After a relatively good nights sleep we also had our first present, Alex slept in a bit in the morning. Something to be thankful for and we grabbed the Z's while they were on offer. Once we were up and moving he withdrew his favour and launched a missle of a poo into his nappy. Soon we were splashing around in the bath giving him a good clean. Son - cause and effect, simply the learning curve of life. We can't complain, I had a text from Duncan whose young one is only a little older than Alex and in his own words 'Hannah's pressie to us this year is a sleepless night' so it could have been worse.
With all that out the way we got on with opening our presents trying to keep Alex as excited as we clearly were. Despite the last minute nature we had a few things wrapped up and so the traditional pile of paper on the floor grew. Fueled by non-stop Christmas carols I think even Alex got in the mood and after some family snaps we let him open his present with a lot of help from us.
Presents of course being the focal point of the day the rest started to flash by. We had a roast chicken - I've never been bothered with Turkey - for lunch, a sleepy lazy afternoon with some board games while Alex slept. Then Alex gave us our own present, he went to bed at 6pm and slept soundly so we could relax for a while.
All in all it was hard to remember we were in Beijing as this would have read much the same in the UK. On the other hand we are looking forward to the Chinese New Year to get a bit more involved in the local celebrations.