Getting My Christmas On

The present was just a prop, I didn't get to keep it.

Last night James and I went to the Foreign Correspondents Club Christmas party at the Cesear Park Hotel in downtown Taipei, swanky!

I thought admission would be $900NT ($30 U.S.) for us as a couple, but that was actually the cost per ticket. I wondered if the woman stamping hands could see my soul dying as I thought about all the Christmas cards I still have to air mail, and the presents I still need to buy, not to mention groceries for the rest of the month...

But I soon forget my fiscal woes when we stepped inside and saw the buffet table: cesear salad, smoked salmon, a cheese platter filled with brie and Muenster, glazed ham, roast beef, turkey. Being able to eat meat that comes in big juicy slabs was definitely worth the entrance fee. Plus, for dessert there were cakes and pies as well as four six-gallon tubs of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Haagen-Dazs is really expensive here. The amount of ice cream I ate made my ticket price a steal.

We were seated with a family of four Australians, a guy from Oklahoma, a "Russian of Georgian decent," and one regular Russian. When I told the Russian gentleman seated beside me I was from Alaska he said, "Ah, so that means you are Russian, since Alaska was once part of Russia."

"Umm, well no - my family is actually fourth-generation Finnish immigrants on my mother's side."

"Ah, Finland." He said - kind of like he meant 'well, that's close enough.'

I'm not usually one of those white Americans who rattles off six different European ethnicities in divisions of 16ths and 32nds. I'm just American. That's it. Although I do pay homage to the delicious braided sweet bread my family makes during the holidays - supposedly that comes from the old country.

My Russian friend told me he had a layover once in Anchorage on his way to New York.

"Yes, Anchorage is a big transit hub." I said. I thought about adding "more so before the Cold War ended" but I didn't know if that was socially appropriate. I guess it probably would've been fine as long as I didn't say it like "more so before we won the Cold War and you lost ... Losers!"

Later he told me he'd been a member of the Young Communist League, as was required, when it was still the Soviet Union. Then he moved to Taiwan and wrote for the "Anti-Communist League for National Salvation." Quite the ideological swing.

There were raffle drawings. Since it's a club for journalists - the prizes were mostly memory storage devices, air tickets, and booze. There were four winners at our table, but James and I weren't among them.

Kids help the band with the jingle bells.

Between drawings, there was a jazz trio. I was having such a good time, I even enjoyed their rendition of Jingle Bell Rock - my very least favorite of my least favorite Christmas songs (followed closely by Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, and plain old Jingle Bells).

In short, it was a fabulous evening. mmm, chocolate ice cream. mmm, roast beef.