Christmas

A day of mixed emotions: present-opening in the morning, including timely delivery of Alyssa's new bike and Naomi thrilled with her MP3 player. Sad, however, opening the box of presents mum had sent: my top came with a note saying "If it doesn't fit, I've kept the receipt". Still, Liz did a great turkey lunch and then we jumped into a taxi to attend Christmas mass at St Joseph's Catholic Church. We were expecting it to be full of westerners, but it was 95% Chinese. Nice service in English, and comforting despite our seriously lapsed 'faith'. The church looked rather magical, almost surreal, lit up with spotlights in the middle of atheist Beijing. A strange, slightly removed Christmas then, but we made the most of a sad situation.