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Obviously, Christmas is celebrated in Taiwan too. By every single department store that you can find that is. In the homes, some Taiwanese seem to like decorating a little during the last few days of December, but it's not like they would take off from work or school a single day before new year.
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Now, I did manage to get just one day off from school on the 24th, so that I could prepare for a Christmas party on that day. The idea was of course to give my family and a few friends. My family ended up inviting so many that over 20 people showed up to the party.
Luckily IKEA had Swedish Glögg. And obviously people were surprised when tasting hot white wine with strange spices, almonds and raisins added.
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Of course I am making ris a la mande. Risengrød too. And the people loved it.
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... But only so much that they'd eat it in way too small bowls and with chopsticks.
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Thing is, my host mother prepared most of the stuff to eat already. This was just the welcome table, later came even more stuff to eat. Oh, and I put those swedish biscuits there, but no seemed to dare eat them except for one of the guests who had previously been on an exchange trip to Sweden.
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Tiffany brought her Spanish boyfriend. I really miss european-looking people already. Everyone around here are Asian. Only rarely I spot an American, and I must say that even I have a few times caught myself in staring at other westerners walking past me on the street as the Taiwanese seem to do a lot. In Spain they eat lobster and Paeilla for Christmas apparently.
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I have danish butter cookies too! But people think they're too sweet, so I'm still probably the only one who can empy the remaining 2/3rds of cookies.
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Joni brought some pudding too. They were also very sweet and mainly composed of cream, so of course I liked very much.
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It should be pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that children are the most vile creatures in this world. These two just killed the reindeers.
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Actually, even though there's pretty much nothing to find around Taiwan that just resembles Danish christmas a bit, the smell of warm Glögg should be able to help just a little.
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There were even Christmas gifts. I was given two traditional Chinese dolls. Gave away some Circeline videos translated into Chinese aswell as the Chinese version of The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo to my family. Thank god that everyone didn't bring gifts.
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Obviously, I had made way too much stuff as people would only eat a tenth of what you usually eat of the dishes I made, but luckily in Taiwan they'll split up any unfinished food, and so, usually people will carry home a number of bags with various foods every time they've eaten outside. Whether it's in a restaurant, at a big come-together or just any other normal dinner at home, Taiwanese people make more food than they can finish.
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So, that was my Christmas eve. Christmas day I still went to school, and after all, it's not really different from any other day in Denmark, so I'm just happy I got the 24th off.
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