Christmas and the Holiday Season

Knowing that Christmas has passed， I still think it is necessary to write an article for the biggest holiday in the U.S.

Because many large cities in China are very much westernized， Christmas has become one of the biggest shopping seasons in China. Although it is also the biggest shopping season in the U.S.， Christmas is really about giving. It means giving your love to the ones that you care about and the ones who care about you.

I haven’t had a real Christmas until I met my husband Rob in 2010. Thus we have had two Christmas together with his family. American working professionals typically have three days off during Christmas， Dec 24， 25 and 26th. On the New Year’s Day typically we have 2 days off， December 31st and Jan 1st. Thus many people will take off from work for the whole week between both holidays.

Typically， on December 24th， children will drive up to their parents’ house and meet up with family and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day together. My mother-in-law has her own habit of giving us new pajamas on Christmas Eve. The first time she did that I thought that was my Christmas present， but later I realized Christmas presents will be given on the Christmas day， usually in the morning when we get up. So it feels like they have been left in the house by Santa. Thus all the presents should be wrapped up by Christmas Eve and piled up under the tree.

In the morning of Christmas day， we would get up early and ready to receive our gifts. Normally people don’t tell each other what they are going to get， so each box was labeled “To: xxx” and “From: xxx”. Everyone was sitting together in a circle， and one of the family members will volunteer to hand out the gifts. We then opened our gifts in turn， one after another. Normally you will get at least one gift from each person or couple. Very likely， one of them is the “big” present and the rest are small things. For example: I got 5 gifts from my sister-in-law Alyssa， which were: a funny wall calendar， a refrigerator magnet， a cute desk calendar， an offer to take me to one of my favorite restaurant， and a very nice photo album of our wedding pictures which made by her and her boyfriend Jason.

When I saw my wedding album I was stunned. It was so elegant and it brought out a lot of memories. When I got married， we didn’t spend a lot of money on our wedding like average Americans do and we did not hire a professional photographer. Her boyfriend， Jason， loves photography and offered to take pictures for us， which was very nice of him.

After the wedding， he gave us the CD with our pictures. We printed some of them out and gave them to our friends and families. We also printed some out to put in a frame and hang on our wall. But we have never had a wedding photo album. This time， more than a year after our wedding， Alyssa and Jason finished making us this very special album. Although it was a year later， we have never expected them to do it for us.

I mentioned this example because it tells us that Christmas is not just about shopping， but it is really about giving your love. Over the time period of a year， we talked and communicated. If we truly care about the person we will easily find out what they like or need. At the end of the year， we can try our best to help make them happy by giving them just what they need. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend， but about how much thought you have put into it.

In the end， if you are invited to spend Christmas with your friend’s family， keep in mind to bring some gifts. Of course it all depends on your own situation and how well you know them. You should have an idea of how many gifts you want to bring and how much money you want to spend. It is also a very common embarrassing situation when some one gives you $100 dollar worth of gifts but you got him $10 or nothing. If it happens， don’t worry too much but be sure to show them your appreciation. Because it happened to me during the first Christmas

導(dǎo)讀

她是澳大利亞的第一所大學(xué)，位于有“南半球的紐約”之稱的美麗城市——悉尼；她擁有全澳洲最大的大學(xué)圖書館，學(xué)生在這里暢游其中，尋找知識(shí)的真諦；她是高端網(wǎng)絡(luò)技術(shù)合作研究中心的成員；她的金融研究領(lǐng)域躋身于世界最優(yōu)秀大學(xué)之列，培養(yǎng)了經(jīng)貿(mào)領(lǐng)域?qū)W術(shù)研究的領(lǐng)軍人；她擁有古文物數(shù)在南半球居首位的博物館，告訴人們鮮為人知的秘密；她培養(yǎng)出了優(yōu)秀的體育人才，在悉尼奧運(yùn)會(huì)上創(chuàng)造了童話般的成績；諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)獲得者曾在這里苦心研究，澳大利亞總理曾在這里求學(xué)；她的藝術(shù)系有《鋼琴課》的女導(dǎo)演簡#8226;坎皮恩在此做兼職教授。她的女子學(xué)院走出了層出不窮的杰出女性。她燦爛文化同時(shí)代前沿完美結(jié)合，占據(jù)著澳大利亞的學(xué)術(shù)重陣。