Holiday Week - December 2020

Winter Solstice (afternoon), Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year's Day were holidays away from the office.  As much as we enjoy serving, a break from our labors provides a refreshing rest.  We always wear our nametags and carry pass-along cards and pamphlets.  It's easy to start a conversation wherever we go and we try to be happy and upbeat, which is easy with the friendly people in Hong Kong.

Christmas Day is a holiday for most domestic workers.  They leave their employer’s home and seek a public location to enjoy the day.  We traveled to Lohas Park and saw countless tents set up for their day of relaxation.

 

                 Thankfully, Christmas was a beautiful, warm, and sunny day.

These women unpack their bags of food and entertainment.  Most will spend the entire day here as they have nowhere else to go.

          I asked permission to photograph this happy group dressed for the Christmas celebration.

           Poinsettias!  These plants delight the eye in nearly every landscape setting in Hong Kong.

                                The white poinsettias were especially beautiful this year. 

The Pizza Pig – crowds await entrance to this restaurant.  Once again, I must question the wisdom of such a name for the establishment.

Disneyland is still closed.  But, the park MTR train still serves the area.  We boarded to see Inspiration Lake.  The windows always make me smile.

I like the themed rings that replace the usual hand-hold devices.  Note the interior window of the MTR train.

Inspiration Lake borders the Disneyland property.  Boxing Day brought many families to this serene and scenic spot to enjoy picnics and time to play with new bikes, scooters, drones, etc.

 Ludmilla directs a handful of missionaries and employees in storing and marking all Christmas decoration bins.  The entire process gave me some good ideas to use at home.

                                Sister Gardner and I place wreaths in individual storage bags.   

Note Marco Lee at the work table.  He used his phone (attached to his laptop) to photograph the contents of every storage bin, then printed color photos for easy identification.  My job was “runner” so I headed to floor 9 to retrieve the photos and proceed to laminate them.  Actually, Ludmilla wanted two photos for every storage bin – one for the side and one for the top.  Marco and I finally caught up to the bin fillers.   With an organized schedule and a fabulous work crew the entire process took less than three hours.  Next year’s decoration committee will benefit from our labors.