It's beginning to look a lot like winter

Winter is here and with no better way to announce its arrival it dumped a whole bunch of snow on us. Just enough to be inconvenient but not enough to get us a day off school. 

So with snow on the ground it was time to start thinking about Christmas. In the spirit of Christmas Sheena and I took another Friday night to go look at some illuminations over in Sagamiko—another thing that has become a yearly tradition. It was really nice but still not comparable to the amazing first year when I went with Rhee and we stayed in the music box all evening watching the light show in time to the most beautiful music I could ever imagine pairing with the sights of the light cathedral. After, in favour of another tradition, we went to the Gusto on the lake and warmed ourselves up with cocoa and dinner.

 

For my Christmas lesson this year I decided to make cards with Asumi but utilize my very awesome English room for Yoshidanishi. I put up three large paper Christmas trees in the back of the room and while listening to Christmas music I had my kids decorate them with crafts. It was a lot of fun and a lot of really creative (and sometimes creepy) things came from it. My favourite was when a kid somehow coloured Santa upside down so he came out looking like a ghost. He was all embarrassed but I assured him it was adorable and hung it front and centre on the tree. Now I never want to take it down…

Then the year came to a close. My last day of school was Christmas Eve which is also Kevin’s birthday. On the Sunday before we’d had his party (I totally managed to surprise him with awesome party poppers~) so for his actual birthday we combined his birthday dinner with the Japanese tradition of eating fried chicken and cake and played video games!

 
On actually Christmas I was really happy that I didn’t have to work. It was a beautiful day. I woke up late. Put on Christmas movies. Made a big breakfast and unwrapped the little presents mom had wrapped and sent to me which were waiting under the Christmas tree. It was really peaceful and nice. I managed to keep the spirit of Christmas alive with ‘The Santa Clause’ and baileys in my coffee. In the afternoon I walked over to Sheena’s listening to music and enjoying the warm day and there we drank her fabulous homemade eggnog watched movies and ate more fried chicken and cake. It was a good Christmas but I do look forward to being back with my loved ones next year.

But I won’t be alone for the holidays for Nikki comes on Saturday! We’re going north to Sendai one trip and south to Sekigahara for another. Really excited!