Oh Christmas Tree(s)

I heard from a friend that Wal-mart had Christmas decorations. I was excited because you never know if you are gonna find Christmas decor in China, and I only had two small ornaments with me so I needed a little something more to make our home feel "Christmasy."

There was an entire aisle of Christmas decorations--more Santa and snowmen than the Son, and more cheap than classy, but I found a small tree that I liked, a table cloth, and a bag of assorted ornaments.

The tree was on display so I had to get some help from an employee. They asked me to wait and went to the back in search of the tree. Then they brought me a box excitedly and placed it in my arms. I assumed it was the tree I wanted (some green branches were sticking out of the corner), but I wanted to confirm so when I got to the counter I asked the cashier if this was indeed the 39kuai tree (about $6.00). It rang up as 29kuai (about $4.50), and I thought, even better!

We got home and I open the box. It was exactly the tree I had wanted, the problem was the box contained NINE of the tree I wanted. I had only paid for one. In the words of my Chinese friend, "so lucky!"

As funny as the mistake was, now I needed to get back on the bus, return to Wal-mart, and then explain the situation with my limited Chinese. In fact, we waited a few days to go back because we didn't have time that particular day. So we went back today with an explanation rehearsed. The workers understood me completely and were so grateful that we had returned the eight extra trees. In the end, we had a language success and now we have a home that feels a little bit more like Christmas. Let the season begin!