Merry Christmas to everyone!

If you believe it or not but I have a really "christmassy" feeling this year!

A three meters high beautiful decorated Christmas Tree is standing in ELI's Entrance Hall and adored by myself every day when I come in the door :)

Even if we have no freezing weather and no snow, but I really enjoy the Christmas Time here in Vietnam. All coffee places are playing English Christmas songs. The streets are decorated beautifully with sparkling lights in silver, green and red! And the best thing is I don't freeze ;) I can still wear T-Shirts or gorgeous dresses for our Xmas parties! Can life be better?!

We had two really nice Xmas parties at work. One for the students where they had prepared A0 Xmas Cards beforehand and some classes had practiced different performances incl. dancing and singing with self created lyrics to their favourite Xmas songs.

We had such a brilliant time in preparing for the great event, which took place last Friday on the 17th of December. You should have seen the students, they had worked with so much joy and energy on it, it was inspiring as a teacher as well.

Two of my classes participated in each of the competitions: Xmas Card + Xmas Performance

So I was as excited as them to see if we have a chance of winning a lovely price.

The party started with a performance of the ELI staff with the famous songs "12 days of Xmas" where we had created our own lyrics to make it more fun and more Vietnamese.

We had a really good time in all our rehearsals ;) We all made an effort to even dress up, so I actually was a butterfly ;) Don't even ask how often we actually met! But in the end it all worked out and we got some tremendous applause!!! The students loved it and that was all what mattered.

Then the students started off with their performances and Xmas songs with their own lyrics. The eagerness rose by each single performance that evening.

One of my classes dressed even in Santa Claus costumes and one girl dressed up in a stunning white dress as an Angel and sang with a gorgeous voice "Last Christmas"!

TOEIC Class: Winner of the best Xmas Song & Dance performance 2010

Our rehearsal

All the Xmas Cards were displayed in the Entrance hall and the judges had to vote for the best one!

By the end of the evening the winners were announced and if you believe it or not but both of my classes won the first prize!!!!

I felt so happy for my students and you should have seen their eyes and faces. I was so proud of them and still are. They got some vouchers for the Cinema and the other class a voucher to go for coffee :) The students were stunned!

EFIC - Elementary Class:

Winner of the best and prettiest Xmas Card 2010 and 3rd place for the performance!

Our rehearsal

The 2nd party was for the ELI staff yesterday where we went for a really posh dinner buffet in our famous 5 Star Hotel in Danang!!! Was that tasty :) Pity I couldn't try and eat everything - the selection was just too big. A dessert table...you can only dream of!

Please also have a look on our ELI website, where you can actually see the rehearsals before the party :) It was so much fun! On the top of each video you can see the name of the teacher.

http://my.opera.com/elidanang/blog/elidanang-christmas-party-performance-2

I hope you are all having such a nice Xmas feeling as myself. I am far away from home this year once again but I hope you all have a chance to celebrate Xmas with you family and loved one's. Thank God I have skype and so we will have a small little Xmas party with our video cameras and it will almost feel like being back home.

My house is also not empty as I am getting a visitor over. Marie from Dublin is coming to stop by over Xmas during her Leave of Absence trip from IBM Ireland ;) Looking forward to welcome another guest soon.

I will teach on the 24th and also on New Years Eve, but there is still enough time to celebrate!!!

Merry Christmas to all of you :)

Big hug