Say Kimchi!: Christmas Celebrations

Christmas away from home is never ideal. In Korea, for Christmas, you only get one day off. So, I had to take my one day vacation and make it as fantastic as possible. The morning started with a mega skype session and crepes. Crepes are Hodulik family tradition for Christmas eve. So, when I was skyping my Christmas morning, it was their christmas evey, and it totally qualified. I skyped with almost all the Hoduliks by reaching out to both Vermont and Pennslyvania.

We made good use of the Selfie Stick to get picture with the whole family...in the computer.

After Skype, I went on a baking marathon. My lovely siblings had sent me some cookie mix packages and since this was my only day off, I decided to bake them ALL! It was...a lot of baking for the next few hours. Here are my sugar cookies and Olivier made a Buche de Noel. We were going to a potluck Christmas party so we both decided to make dessert.

My Sugar Cookies

His Bouche de Noel.

The party was pretty cool. We had pizza, falafel, chicken, potatoes, and a few other dishes. There was a balloon artist who kept making really big hats. We even had a "White Elephant" gift exchange at the end. Despite really wanting the plant, I got a lint roller. Well, that's always useful!

The next day, I was back at school and it was time for celebration. Many classes were doing their end of the year parties. A few classes invited me to theirs. Here are my 2-6 students doing a "Miss Korea" pageant. The girls broke up into teams and chose a few boys to turn into Miss Korea. Here are the results.

They revealed one by one to astounding cheers!

All of the boys in a group shot.

Owning their makeovers!

While many of the kids were celebrating, there were a few students who were very stressed out. I had chosen 5 groups of kids to do a live presentation for their entire grade. During the semester, we had done a 5 minute presentation and a 5-10 minute drama. The students wrote and performed their own material. The presentation was about Korean culture and the drama was supposed to be loosely based on Halloween. When the vice principal told me we had to do an hour long presentation, I chose the 5 best groups. It ended up being 3 presentations and two dramas.

Since I would be on stage and controlling the powerpoints, I could not take photos. I gave my camera to one of my students. I got it back with many selfies from before the presentation.

Here are the photos from the performances, I gave each group a small introduction, so there's me.

The first presentation was "Korean Ghosts." My two students, Jae Young and Seung Hyeon, made a Prezi. First, they introduced ghosts and monsters from many countries. Then, they talked about some traditional and modern Korean Ghosts.

The next group was "Popular Korean Names Over the Years." KyeongRae and HyeonYeong looked at different names over the decades and why they were popular at that time.

The third presentation was "Korean Folktales." They looked at 2 main folktales. One was KongGi PatGi, which is similar to Cinderella. The other one was Simcheong. They were trying to show themes that are universal in all cultures and some that made Korea special.

Then, it was onto the dramas. The first drama was originally called, "The Night of Halloween," but in honor of the holiday, it became "The Night of Christmas." The story was really funny. One girl can stop time and she uses her magic power to beat up her friend and frame her other friend for the injury. Then, she steals her friends boyfriend.

The girl with the magic powers, "BangSuk"

The girls buy their costumes for the "Christmas Party." Yeah, this was better in the Halloween party version.

The rich and handsome boyfriend...with broad shoulders. He entered the stage throwing around 50,000 won notes.

The stupid police officers collecting evidence.

Here's Bangsuk waving her magic wand to stop time. She switches the evidence to frame Jieun and totally confuses the "stupid police officers."

Minji demanding the police arrest the criminal!

Taehwan discovering the beautiful Bangsuk and leaving Minji!

The last scene is Minji asking, "Am I alone on Christmas?" Since Christmas is a romantic holiday, this is a horrible fate for poor Minji!

The last drama kept their Halloween theme, although they added a lot more jokes. The drama was called "Return Human Project." Basically, a mad scientist created a candy that can turn a ghost into a human. Also, he lives next door to Dracula, Frankenstein, and Chucky. He offers them the chance to turn into a human.