Merry Christmas!

This post is about what we did for Christmas day. We decided to have it at my apartment, since it's definitely the biggest. Originally, I think we invited about 15 people or so but eventually it ended up that we had 26 people coming. We ordered a Western-type holiday meal from an army wife who also has a catering business. Also, people brought loads of alcohol to share (mostly). We had plenty of beer, wine and soju and some people even brought other snacks (chips, cake, fudge, chocolate, etc).

Laura slept over at my place on Christmas eve and we both got up around 9am to start preparing. There really wasn't that much to do except I mopped the floor and we went to get some more cash in case the food arrived before enough people did. The food was supposed to arrive around 2pm and many people didn't know that until late so they weren't sure if they'd make it by then.

When the first people started showing up, it was kind of exciting. The whole greeting people and bringing them to my apartment made it feel like a real family Christmas where everyone meets up at one house. The food actually didn't show up until about 3:45 which ended up working out pretty nicely. By then, everyone was there and we had plates and cups and everything. Plus, it was closer to a proper dinner time. The food was awesome! Laura and I met the woman at my school and we directed her back to my apartment, where we had to enlist some help and take a bunch of trips to and from the car.

 We flattened out the futon, covered it in plastic bags, and set the food out there.

(Carrots, stuffing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, broccoli, and green bean casserole! Not pictured: two turkeys and two hams.)

A delicious Christmas dinner!

Obviously you can't see everyone in this picture but this was how we sat down to eat. One giant oval in the kitchen. 

After dinner we played white elephant with wrapped presents that everyone brought. We were originally going to do Secret Santa but the website we were using to organize it kept failing and then people kept getting added to the event after the fact, so this worked much better. Some of the gifts were pretty funny and it was a blast. We didn't realize until we were finished but it took about an hour!

After white elephant, we had dessert (four cheesecakes from the same woman) and just kind of hung out, talked, played some charades and took some group pictures. 

The guy who took these actually brought a tripod and does a really good job with editing so this was pretty cool. A lot of us are getting a print of the color one (with "bitches" removed haha...we appreciate the humor but don't want to have to worry about where we display it).

Probably around 7 or so, people started heading home (as we had to work the next day). Nina and Laura stayed until about 10:30 or so and got to meet my mom and dad via Skype. They also took some leftovers, which we had A LOT of. At the time I was kind of wishing we had gotten rid of the food, but throughout the week I've been really happy to have it. 

This Christmas was definitely different from my usual Christmases, but it was absolutely awesome! I couldn't have asked for a better Korean Christmas with a better group of people!

(Christmas Version)

Original Version:

Artist: Girls' Generation

Song: Kissing You

Album: Girls' Generation

Released: November 2007