Cam and I are quite pleased with the way our apartment is turning out for Christmas in China. We are trying hard to make it feel homey and comfortable – make it a place where you’re happy to return by the end of the day, and you don’t mind having people over and/or just staying in. We also want our home to reflect our appreciation for all the different cultures we’ve come across and our love for traveling. Here are some pictures of things we’ve added along the way.
Here are also some of our Christmas decorations. This will be our first Christmas completely away from family since we got married, so we are “investing in spiritual happiness” as Cam called it, and decided to put decorations up. Happy holidays!
This awesome painting was left behind in Cameron’s classroom. No one claimed it, so…
We decided to decorate our dining room with it!
I’m normally not fond of colored Christmas lights but I decided to give them a try this year. This is our smaller balcony door. We also got some new curtains in a more lively blue, as opposed to all the neutral beige of the apartment curtains.
We used to have the top frame in the DR. Now it’s paired with its “brother frame”…these are scriptures from the Koran. Cameron got them on his trip to Turkey – you can’t see it in the picture, but Cam’s Turkish flag is next to them.
A small shelf to fill up some space and lay out some decor items.
This picture of my parents has gone with me each time I lived abroad and has been in every home of mine. Next to it are figurines Cam bought in Turkey and Cambodia, respectively. We’ve also started to add some coasters from Chinese breweries to our decorations. Cameron has more coasters from his European travels.
And so it begins! Our stockings (we need to get them embroidered with our names!) and a shelf we put on top of the TV (Cam showed mad concrete drilling skills – filled out his man’s man card for a year!) because it was painfully empty.
Sorry for the side shots, folks! I’ll have Cam come in and rotate them so you can see our tree straight! It’s not very big and not professional or flashy, but I think that’s what we love about it.
This is one of those things you collect and can make little towns of. If you put batteries in, you can see the kids skating around Santa and a guy’s camera flash. Pretty neat.
We put one of these shelves on each side of the bed for additional decor. Our room still could use some improvement in the coziness department, but it’s getting there.
To some, it might seem silly to spend money on decoration, but to us, it’s made a huge difference in how we’ve adapted and how well we feel about our new lives here. I’d say it’s paid off, and we are quite happy with the results. I sometimes wish I was more crafty though and could make stuff like those girls who use Pinterest do.
Ah, I love Christmas!
Big love from both of us,
Analin