Living La Vida Local: Little Flowers, Christmas Balls and Quiet Celebrations

Our friends at Chi Fan for Charity were happy to report a stunning figure this week: RMB 400,000 raised by their efforts this past November. Half of that has already been donated to The Little Flowers Project. We'll have more on this in a separate post and photos in the gallery, so keep your eyes peeled. In other philanthropic news, our own Charity Super Quiz raised enough to help some orphans at Ping An Medical Foster Clinic. Read about it here.

For community events this coming week, we recommend you check out our post on things to do for Christmas in Beijing. The day itself is approaching fast. In less than a week, we'll be knee-deep in wrapping paper, gifts, and holiday treats. Here are a couple of community-oriented seasonal highlights in town that we recommend:

• The Dreamaker Christmas Village in Wangjing is promising a cheerful blast of Christmas movies and fun.
• BICF Liangmaqiao's Christmas Eve service will offer a quiet celebration with songs and sermon.

To take the edge off the holidays, on Friday you can attend a discussion on the end of the world "as it happens" and a hand-pulled noodle class at The Hutong on Saturday. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, don't forget that it might affect venues' opening hours. If you attend regular community events on Tuesdays, call in advance to make sure that they won't be taking a break.

Happy holidays!