Christmas, New Year's, and Happiokai!

Akemashte Omedento Goziamus! (Happy New Years!) This is the biggest holiday in Japan. The Japanese take several weeks off around the holiday to spend it at home with their family, eating, playing games, and generally enjoying one another. There's a tradition too of taking a bath with little oranges to cleanse you for the New Year, as depicted on Hannah Jane's little attendance book from Japanese school, but I don't know any Japanese people that actually do this! (This didn't stop Hannah Jane from asking if she could do this, something I deferred with a simple "we'll see" and then hiding all the "little oranges" (tangerines) in the house. Rick and I on the other hand rang in the New Year, now in our middle ages, by cozying up with a movie in bed, and falling asleep with it on WELL before the Japanese began ringing the temple and shrine gongs to bring in the new year at midnight. (But just being in bed together this year, and not half a world apart, was enough celebration for me!)

One reason we were so tired is we'd braved the blizzard conditions driving 3 hours back from a very fun overnight ski trip on the west coast of Japan. As a matter of fact, you could clearly see the whole coastline of the Sea of Japan from most of the slopes! It's a pretty odd feeling swishing down through the snow as you look out onto the beach. But pretty neat too. We had plenty of snow, wonderful food, and a nice room and onsen (hot springs) to boot. And the highlight of the trip was Hannah Jane did some skiing!

She liked it, though on the way home she told her Daddy she wanted to learn to snow board next....Rick was pleased. We're heading out next weekend with both fighter squadrons to an extended ski weekend at another resort which should be even more fun.

So we're making use of our time left here at Misawa though we don't know when or where we might go next. We'll get some news by the end of January/beginning of February and hopefully we'll know by then or shortly after. Stay tuned......

In the meantime, here are some photos to wrap up what we've been doing. Enjoy!

Happiokai!
At the beginning of December, Hannah Jane performed with her schoolmates in the annual school winter "play", a Japanese tradition. Every class is featured a few times, making for a very long morning of sitting with your knees tucked under you, on the hard floor, sitting shoulder to shoulder with every parent and grandparent of the school. We were lucky in our strategy to try and give ourselves the most room and something to lean against by choosing a place against a wall that was erected to get the students back and forth to the stage without being seen. Still, five hours--uninterrupted--sitting on the floor is a long time! But it was definitely worth it, as the kids had been working hard at the plays, dances and music. Here is Hannah Jane playing her melodian with her class (a melodian is like a little piano powered by the air they blow into a tube -- they can rest it on their desk or hold it in their hands as they do here):


And here she is in her dance with some of her classmates and friends:

A Christmas pageant, this was not! (for those photos, see below). Nor was it suppose to be, obviously. But I wasn't sure what to expect when we received a note from her Sensei just after Halloween telling us what she would be in the winter play. My note said, in English/romanji, "Bo Peep Bo Peep." I thought, how nice of Sensei to write that in English for me! She must have seen the photos of Hannah Jane in her "Little Bo Peep" Halloween costume and made her Little Bo Peep for the school play! (Not!!!!!) "Bo Peep" , my translator told me, when I showed it to her, was the name of a Korean girl band's song--and dance-- which she encouraged me NOT to view on YouTube. So of course we did....and were a little surprised.... What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz-tV5na89U
(This by the way is the Japanese and much more PG version --watch the original Korean version for a little more "surprise. Here is Hannah Jane's class version:




Their version of the "shake" (complete with tail, just as you see it in the video) was cute -- or at least Hannah Jane's was. One parent told me my daughter had the only cute "little girl" shake, while the rest were more of an "M-TV" version. As for her daughter's dance she said to me, "At least your daughter had more clothing on!"

After many more little dances and mini-plays which were actually cute and educational, even though we didn't understand a word, the whole class congregated on the stage for the big finish -- the singing of the school song!



This was then followed by a surprise visit from "Santa-san!" Santa was English and so required a translator for the many questions he got from the children: "Why do you wear red?!" ('cause it looks good on me!) etc...

We were relieved when they finally dismissed the class and we were allowed to retrieve our children from their classrooms, at 1pm! After a much-needed bathroom trip we celebrated with a lunch at Hannah Jane's favorite restaurant, "Kappa Sushi" (Kappa, again, being the little creatures that eat children if they get to close to the rice paddy canals). Rick and I split a beer.

So a week later, we had the church winter play, a story loosely based around the music of a Christian folksinger who sung "Go tell it on the mountain" from every continent/area of the world (thus the girl in the hula skirt behind Hannah Jane who played the part of -- surprise -- an angel):
"Go tell it on the mountain" (in Mexico, Hawaii, Africa, etc....)

After the play we were invited for cookies and tea afterwards and to view the posters the children had all made in their different Sunday school classes, showing Jesus' birth. Here Hannah Jane is standing next to the poster her preschool class drew, showing the purple monster (by her right arm) she drew to depict that no one was afraid (For the angels said, "Lo, do not be afraid...for I have brought you tidings of great joy....) And from this, our daughter thought to draw....a monster.... for whom everyone should not be afraid.....
Other Christmas events: Rick's work's children's party where we got a present from Santa: (Santa had a real beard even!)






We decorated the Christmas tree with Daddy this year (it was his idea to put Rudolph up top):

We made a homemade gingerbread house with our friend Cassidy on Christmas eve day:






And on Christmas morning, we opened (just a few) presents............

Barbie!!




Then just 2 days after Christmas we went to a "Princess Tea Party" for a class mate, where the girls wore their favorite dress-up costumes and picked out their own cakes from a favorite Japanese cake shop in town. They had so much fun, and the Japanese really got a kick out them .
That's about it for now. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for news on where we'll be going next.....on the next great adventure!