Santa brought American cold cereal and candy thanks to some elves back home!
For those of you looking closely at this picture, yes, those are tulips. Trent loves flowers and asked Santa for "a box of tulips and roses."
The kids reading their letter from Santa. Emily had a lot of questions about Santa this year. I wonder if this could be the last year she believes. When she saw the letter from Santa she said, "He really is real!" This year I talked the kids into leaving peanut butter cookies out for Santa, instead of the usual chocolate chip. I didn't want to use any of my precious supply of chocolate chips. I can only find semi sweet here, for $6 a bag, and my mom mails me milk chocolate chips. Anyways, Emily was so worried about the peanut butter cookies, she even had a dream that Santa was allergic to peanut butter and couldn't eat our cookies. In her letter to Santa, she asked what his favorite cookies were, and Santa's response, peanut butter AND chocolate chip! Emily says next year, she's making both kinds.
Jake gets a hold of Trent's Ultramen, the Japanese version of Power Rangers.
This was the Nintendo DS year. I know what you are all thinking, but they are for the bus!
My first chocolate pie that has ever turned out the right way!
The "all the girls in my class have these shoes except for me" Gap, sparkle ballet shoes. I must admit, I was surprised stuff like this has already started happening for Emily. It's only second grade!
It was the usual Christmas morning, presents and breakfast. We spent the day opening, assembling, reading directions, and watching High School Musical 2 for the first time, finally! Then the mail came. We looked out the window and saw people walking to work, having a regular day. What an interesting experience to celebrate Christmas in a country where only about one percent of the population is Christian. (Most Japanese are Buddhist or Shinto) December 25 is not a holiday here, but lucky for us, December 23 is the Emperor's birthday, a national holiday. This year, because the 23 was on a Sunday, Ryan got the 24th off from work, and then took the 25th off and worked the rest of the week.
We had an artificial tree this year. I have not seen any real trees or Christmas tree lots..it's all artificial here. When we moved back in January, our shipment was unexpectedly over the weight limit and we ended up taking out all our holiday boxes, so we have been especially missing all our Christmas books, CD's and ornaments. Luckily for our December Enrichment, we learned how to make these washi paper angels. Most women made one or two, I signed up for 12! I would love to have a Japanese themed tree someday. The kids also made paper snowflakes to decorate the tree with.
Christmas is mostly a commercial event in Japan. Many people don't know exactly what the origin of Christmas is. The big corporations do the main decorating. They light their buildings and the trees. It's a Japanese way to celebrate Christmas Eve by eating Christmas cakes, very similar to strawberry shortcake. For Japanese people, Christmas is an enjoyable day in the year, but Japanese New Year is more important than Christmas. And this is a little of what I have learned about Christmas in Japan!
3 comments:
I was so touched by this post. It is so different there! I truly had no idea! The cereal, the lack of Christianity or understanding of the true meaning of Christmas, the differences in holidays you get off...Wow! Thank you for letting us read about your experiences.
P.S. Sad your traditional ornaments had to be left behind, but how nicely your new ornaments turned out! I could see a whole tree in them!
It sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas :). That is crazy that Emily is already feeling peer pressure in the second grade - the world sure has changed since we were young.
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