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Q: First Chinese Christmas- why so many apples?
errr, so I have gotten about six apples so far from friends and students... is this just a Chinese thing? and if so, where did it come from?
They're apples found on the roadside (traditionally). It symbolizes that you're a road apple. The more you receive, the greater the road apple you're perceived to be.
ScotsAlan:
ha ha. I don't think I have ever seen a fruit fall to the ground from a tree on it's own accord in China.
Maybe that's why it was not a Chinese dude who discoverd gravity 
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Don't give out your phone number. They're seldom really your friends.
No apples for me yet but yesterday some students tried to stuff some cut up apple mixed with yoghurt into my mouth with a pair of chopsticks.
It's a meaningless "tradition" launched by some local with a distorted view of the outside world.
In other words Chinese worship the West but don't know a thing about our traditions.
It's another attempt to show how international and sophisticated they are, buy appropriating and distorting a Western holiday. You see, the Chinese word for "apple" sounds like the Chinese word for "peace"... so it must be a tradition to give apples... since a Western holiday would have traditions based on similar sounding Chinese words because... reasons!
What many of the above have said about China trying to copy the Western tradition of Christmas without really understanding it is true to start with.
According to my students the apples are somehow connected to the Chinese name (meaning?) of Christmas Eve (only) - it's name sounding similar to the word for apple. Otherwise they don't really have anything on Christmas.
Meh... Back home, you get oranges for Christmas, not apples 
My parents told me that the reason for the oranges is that it used to be rare and expensive (well, in the 50's at least), even more so in winter. So it was truly a gift to get oranges. Modern supply-chain killed that tradition, today's kid would feel really sad to get oranges ^^
Apples... USA are often used as the gold standard for everything Western, maybe it was a US traditions a few decades ago ? Or apples are the standard gift for teachers ? I got apples from students as a way to thank me. For example, I once spend a lot of time with a student to explain something, giving examples, practicing step by step, etc. The student seemed really glad I did that, and gave an nice shiny red apple the next lecture.
With Christmas now becoming so prominent in Chinese society, you know the whole nativity story will have to be reinvented. Somebody will find a historical document that shows Joseph and Mary were actually heading for a small town in Xinjiang Province but there was no room in the local Hanting Express and Joseph, being a poor migrant labourer, couldn't afford a room at the Shangrilas. In the Chinese version, there will be no why's men though!
