On December 18, 2009, the Tsinghua International MBA (IMBA) Program held its much anticipated annual Christmas Party at Ten Years After Cafe. With beautiful decorations and holiday music in the background, the party provided an opportunity to bring together MBA students in a relaxing environment to enjoy and share the tradition of Christmas. The party was hosted by the Class Committee members of the IMBA Class of 2011. Over 70 students attended the festive event and celebrated a night filled with good food, fun games and joyful surprises. Everyone was encouraged to help Santa by bringing a small present for the Secret Santa Gift Exchange.

After a mingling session over dinner, the entertainment started with a game of charades. For this, everyone reunited with their orientation teams. Two representatives from each team had to act out a list of words while their team members in the audience tried to guess the most words.  The competition proved to be quite close and after a tiebreaker round, Team 7 prevailed as the winners. Next, fellow student Gao Xinyu, delighted everyone with a magic show, even engaging volunteers from the audience. The last game was an acting activity that involved five volunteers from the audience. Each student took turns drawing lots and had to act out the scene he or she picked. By popular choice, after having entertained the audience with a scene depicting someone locked out of his apartment with no one to call for help, student Dipak Sundara won best actor.

Since it’s not Christmas without Santa, the night concluded with a surprise Santa appearance by German classmate, Nicolas Lang. As the excited MBA students crowded around him with childlike enthusiasm, Nicolas handed out the presents collected from the gift exchange.  The most notable achievement of the night was everyone joining in to create that much desired heartfelt holiday atmosphere so appropriate for this time of the year.

 
Santa handing out presents. 

 
The hosts of the Christmas party.

 
Student Gao Xinyu performing a magic show.