Thursday, December 22, 2005

A Christmas Twofer! (Beats a lump of coal)

It's Christmas time and I'm feeling it even this far away from the place I consider the center of all Christmas: Saint Lambert, Quebec. On Monday I taught my grade 7 all-girl class. They're a blast, some of the best-behaved and brightest students I have. And their headmistress is Ms. Zhang, a jolly little lady who always tells me how much her girls love me. But that's not all (now there's new glow-in-the-dark Yo-Yo Ball!) On Monday their class threw a Christmas party! So I didn't have to teach, and instead spent the 45 minutes watching them act out skits and sing songs in Chinese (I feigned total comprehension, of course). Then they surprised me with Christmas presents! Woah. They're the only presents I got this year, so I took them home and made a little Christmas display in our living room. Everything pictured, including the painting on the wall (but not the T.V.) was given to me by those girls. The painting is amazing, the cards are these intense pop-up display cards, and the presents are still a mystery cause I'm waiting till Christmas to open them.

Now for Christmas songs!
The first is "Old Toy Trains", the third Raffi song to make in onto my blog. It's one of my favourite Christmas songs ever. The second (careful, folks) is religious. It's "Christmas Morn" by Mary Baker Eddy, and it's lyrically happy but tunefully mournful, so I tried to lighten it up mildly. Tell me what you think.

My Christmas eve will probably be quiet and home-aloney. Then, on Christmas morning I'm volunteering to help with the school's Christmas party for private students. Carols and English games, sweet! The last picture is me trying unsuccessfully to get in place for the presents shot. A very Michael Jackson pose, no?

(Hey, if the songs don't load, click here)

7 comments:

Unknown said...

what a nice little haul you got matthew! did you receive any marriage proposals among them?

it's nice to see that you still have a smile on your face so far from home and those you love during the holidays. mine has gone missing. if you see it, please tell it to go home...now!

Anonymous said...

Well, maybe if we had your address we could send you something...

Anonymous said...

I grew up in Brossard! weeeeeird! Really great "old toy" rendition... I had forgotten about that song, then found myself singing along.

Anonymous said...

Don't get me wrong, Cegep was fun... I did go to Champlain though... I had a blast, but in the end it felt exactly like university, so I couldn't figure out why I just couldn't go straight to university??

So now that I've found the blog of my fellow Rive Sud Bru-vah, I'm going to have to go back and read all of your entries on this thing... probably when I'm at work... bored as usual :)

Jess said...

merry (belated) christmas!

Alice said...

you're back too! hello! happy new year! now you need to post the same picture after the presents were opened :-)

Jess said...

oh wait now i gotta wish you a happy (belated) nney year... gosh i am so behind