Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! That comes a little belated in my neck of the woods, as it’s already 3:30am on the 26th (I’ve been adopting Tatsuya’s night owl schedule since my winter break started earlier this week), but I know back in America, things are just beginning to get into full swing, so I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

This is my first Christmas spent away from my parents and the rest of my family, and I have to admit it’s been a little unsettling. I never really had full-on homesickness until now, once the holidays began approaching, and I think it’s thrown me a bit for a loop. It’s harder than I ever thought it would be, especially when I think about the fact that Christmas as I know it may be different for quite a few years to come. On the bright side, Monday is when Tatsuya and I go back out to Fukui so we can spend New Years with his family. In Japan, New Years is the time to get together with friends and family to celebrate, so I think that trip will make up for what I’ve been missing about Christmas.

In any case, we had a good time today, just the two of us. Tatsuya needed a pair of gloves, so we decided to just spend the day at a shopping center– we ended up going to the Colton Plaza Mall in Ichikawa. We went there before to go see a movie, but never really took the time to explore it until today, so it was fun.

I have to say, if Japan really has a declining birth rate, you would have no idea at all, judging by today. Apparently, parents take all their children under 5 to the mall on Christmas! Little kids were everywhere!

In relation to that, here’s one cute anecdote from the day: we were eating lunch in the food court, sitting near the water dispensers, present in many Japanese shopping center food courts, where people can help themselves to free cups of water. At one point, a little, little boy (he couldn’t have been much older than 2 or 3) trots over to the setup next to us. His mother and older sister were apparently in line waiting to order food, and he had been entrusted with the very important, big-boy task of filling water cups (or maybe he came up with the idea on his own and wandered this way in an effort to be “helpful”!) In any case, he was taking this job very seriously as he deliberately and methodically picked out a cup, reached on his tip-toes toward a water dispenser, and…. didn’t quite have enough arm-length left to keep the level held down as the water came out. A couple more attempts, and he decided the job was too big for him, so he screeched out a big “MAMAAAAAAA!!!” across the room. At this point, since Tatsuya and I were watching him the whole time, I clucked my tongue sympathetically and said, “Aw, he needs help.” So, as if in response, Tatsuya gets up to fill a new cup for him. The boy was still holding the original, still empty cup, so he hands it to Tatsuya who dutifully fills that one as well. With two cups in his hands, the boy turned his back to Tatsuya. He looked a bit unsure what to do next… he seemed a bit stunned from receiving some unexpected assistance while watched his older sister making her way to the scene, no longer needed after all. It wasn’t anything too terribly special or interesting, but I suppose it’s always nice to see my fiance go be a knight in shining armor (particularly for small adorable children!) It could have been the spirit of Christmas kicking in, but he was probably just trying to impress me. Anyway, it worked ;)

After eating, we bought our Christmas cake (since eating cake on Christmas is the custom here) and headed home. Tatsuya took a picture before I tucked in. Unfortunately, however, it’s our only picture from the day. At least it was taken with his new camera, which he bought with birthday money from my parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!)

Sorry my hair is silly, I had just woken up from a nap at that point.

On a final note, I just wanted to give a shout-out and congratulations to my friend, Lulu, who gave birth to her baby Noah last weekend. He is absolutely adorable and I am so happy for her and her husband, Shunpei. Merry Christmas!