All of us interns are a long way from home and most of us who weren’t able to go home to spend Christmas with the family decided to get together to celebrate this year’s festivities.

In China, they really try with Christmas but in my opinion you can’t feel the Christmas spirit churning inside you as you would back at home in Europe. I would say most of the interns will agree with this! Back at home, as early as November, radio stations will be blasting out Christmas tunes, Christmas lights are placed on the street lights in the city centre and not to mention the amazing German Christmas Markets around (I really need to visit Germany to experience the real thing!). You do get a lot of Christmas decorations in China but it just doesn’t have the same Christmassy feel as back home.

At the office on Christmas Eve, to try and get ourselves into the Christmas spirit mood we played Christmas music all day long (thanks to Brigitte’s extensive playlist!). Some of the songs that were played, were our first time hearing it this year, so we weren’t in the slightest annoyed about hearing it over and over again all day long! We were working very hard as usual aswell! In China, Christmas Day is still a working day but luckily enough we had the day off, so we all decided to head out and have a few drinks later to celebrate that evening.

The next day, Christmas started very late for some of us who went out the night before. If you didn’t know already, Chinese homes rarely have an oven as there is no need for one as most of the local cuisine is made using a wok. Having said that, if you really need one you can buy a portable at the supermarket! We were lucky enough that Jenny our Office Manager has one. It’s definitely too small to roast a turkey with all the trimmings, but definitely big enough to bake some Christmas treats! The cookies were so good we forgot to take some pictures of the cookies after they were baked.

Those of us who weren’t busy cooking cut some snow flakes out of paper to decorate the place while listening to christmas music. To finish the evening of good food and good company we all made our selves comfortable and as tradition watched a Christmas movie – ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’.

 If you want to join us to celebrate upcoming holidays together, then apply now!