Christmas Indeed

I'll admit it, Christmas is not my favorite holiday. Sure Christmas Eve and Christmas morn with the fam is always special, but I never really feel like getting into the Christmas spirit. Lights, decorations, cards, Christmas shopping--it always seems like so much work. I was rather looking forward to a December without the chaos.

And yet, for some reason, I couldn't help but get wrapped up in the celebrations here. Why the Japanese celebrate Christmas I have no idea, but they do. This week and next, I have 7 Xmas parties to go to (mostly at my schools). Today I played Santa Claus (red suit, hat, white beard and all) for a pre-school/kindergarten. Had to field some questions from the kids in Japanese, though thankfully the teachers helped me out.

"Santa-san, how old are you?" When I replied 150 years old, one kid replied "Then why do you look so young?" Sheesh, I cant even get a white lie by a 5-year old.

"Santa-san, why do you wear a red suit?" This one stumped me, I finally stammered something about red being the Xmas color.

"Santa-san, why do you fly in the sky in a sleigh?" I havent learned the Japanese for "Just because" yet but I am going to soon.

"Santa-san, why do you live at the North Pole?" .............



Back at the junior high school, we had a small Xmas party for my 9th graders. I brought in gingerbread cookies I baked the day before and they had quite a good time decorating them. Expected them to just follow my model, but they were quite creative and were writing Japanese kanji and hiragana as well. Junior high boys being junior high boys, they couldnt resist adorning a few with some male anatomy. They thought it was funny til I made one of them eat it (the others of course then laughed all the harder)!




Tomorrow, I am off to another kindergarten to play Santa Claus...surprisingly, I am enjoying the season afterall...