Merry Christmas from China

Being adopted is somewhat like being born in the sense that you show up empty handed. At least with adoption they let you keep the clothes on your back.

So we took Sean out to get him some new clothes.

And we bumped into Lebron James while we were out. He already had his Christmas game face on.

Urumqi is different than much of the rest of China in that there is a strong minority ethnic presence. Here 70% of people are Han, and the other 30% consist of ethnic minorities including the Islamic Uyghurs. The city is known for the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaaar that highlights the cultural diversity here.

All of the dried fruit and nuts anyone could ever hope for.

Sean’s new pants were a little bit big for him, so we had someone make a belt for him.

And to celebrate Christmas Eve, we ate pizza. Notice Sean showing off his skills with a fork and knife.

Having grown up in Kentucky, a white Christmas was a special gift. As cold as it is, I’m certain it happens every year here. In fact Sunday is the only day it hasn’t snowed. Here we are braving the snow in the People’s Square.

And then, in what I hope does not become a new Christmas tradition for us, we stopped at KFC for lunch.

The boys wouldn’t mind this being a tradition, however. I think the sled has been Noah’s favorite part of the trip.

Amanda even got in on the action.

A friend of mine, Amy, introduced us to some Americans living here in Uruqmi. They teach at the local university. It was an incredible blessing for us to spend Christmas night with people who were celebrating the birth of Jesus along side of us. It was different for us, but it was good.

Thanks Amy for sharing your friends with us.

And we celebrated Christmas night with some new friends.

I’m a little late, but Merry Christmas to everyone.