Merry Christmas

We started our long Christmas break with a day off for the Emperor's birthday on December 23rd. Our church had a kids Christmas party and we took Miyako. We were blessed with two of her little friends also coming. It was a lot of fun. The kids played games and heard the Christmas story in Japanese. Miyako enjoyed simply running around the room and the rice crackers.

On Christmas Eve, Kan took Miyako on a date. They went to lunch at McD's and then did Christmas shopping for mama. I enjoyed the break as I was busy in the kitchen all day preparing for our Christmas dinner. It brought back fond memories as my dad and I did the same thing when I was a little girl. I hope it can become a tradition for Kan and our kids.

Christmas was a rather interesting day for us. Rather than being with at least 9 other people and opening gifts as an all day affair, it was just the three of us. We had a very lazy morning. Miyako slept until 9AM, due to a late night and no nap on Christmas Eve, and she wanted to play in her bed until 10AM. We finally ate breakfast around 10ish. I had made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and we lit a candle in one and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. We also brought out the baby Jesus from our Little People manger scene. After breakfast we let Miyako find her gifts. She saw the new table from Ikea, the Anpanman toy, and the Little People farmhouse, all of which were unwrapped as they were too big to wrap, and said, "What is this?" She got so enthralled in these gifts that we did not open anything else that day but her stocking. We kept asking her if she wanted to open more gifts and she said no. So, we let it go.

Around 5ish, three families from our church came over to enjoy Christmas dinner. Everyone brought side dishes and I made the turkey and three other casseroles and dessert. I completely forgot to take pictures of all the food. But it was beautiful and yummy. We had 8 children and 10 adults in our home! It was a bit tight but we had so much fun celebrating together. It was nice to get our minds off of not being at home. We really feel like we made the most of our first Christmas in Tokyo.

After cooking and cleaning I was pretty worn out. The day after Christmas we did nothing. Literally. I did brush my teeth and hair but other than that we stayed in our pj's all day. In fact, we have done quite a bit of that over the Christmas holiday. Kan is off work until Thursday and it has been so nice to have him home. At night when Miyako prays and we ask her what she is thankful for, sometimes she will say, "daddy home now." I think she too is enjoying having daddy around. We are a bit concerned though that we have made her lazy the past few days. Today when I asked her if she wanted to get dressed and go outside, she said, "No, stay in pjs."

I took the Christmas decorations down today. I must say, it was nice getting them down and put away in less than a hour. That is what happens when you have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and not a lot of room. But it was a bit sad as our apartment now seems a bit empty. As I put the decorations away, I also put away about 7 gifts still unopened by Miyako. I have decided to use them for rainy days, airplane or train rides, or just really bad days. Eventually before Christmas 2011 she will hopefully have opened everything.