Christmas with the Kids

Christmas is a great holiday for little kids with a strange big guy in a red suit bringing you you presents. Clark dressed up as Santa for Emma the little child of one of the German teachers. Emma has gotten really good at Chinese since she goes to a Chinese kindergarten. In fact when Clark gave her a present and her mom prompted her, in German, to say thank you, she came back with Xie Xie, thank you in Chinese. I guess Santa is Chinese to little Emma, I'm sure all the toys were made in China and if you substitute elfs for dollar a day factory workers you've pretty much got it. Like a lot of little kids Emma was sort of nervious around Santa. I've noticed that no matter how big a fan children are of Disney characters they tend to freak out a little at places like Disny World. It's one thing to see Mickey on TV but a real life seven foot talking mouse is another story entirely. Emma was sweet about it though, I think she'll have to be an actress or something some day to recapture her childhood where every where she goes every person pay total attention to her. As unusual as westerners are generally a little blond haired kid is even more unusual. There was also a group of children singing Christmas Carols in Chinese in the lobby for about 15 minutes but they were done before I could get any footage. Today when I went to the noodle shop for dinner the little kid there who always likes to wave at me was back. She basically waves and I wave back and she laughs for a solid minute then does it again. Her mom tried to talk to me a little in Chinese but I couldn't really get any of it. The little kid never really responds to any of the words of Chinese I know but I do get a sort of "hello" out of her sometimes, though much less pronounceable.