More Snow, Komu Santa, and Christmas

We awoke this morning to yet another amazing snowfall. This time, however, much to my surprise, the pre-school didn’t close. Ridge stayed home anyway. Aaron’s philosophy is that if the snow is taller than your children, don’t go out. As you can see from these pictures, the snow was at least as deep as Holt is tall in some places. After I took these pictures of the front entryway, Aaron attempted to shovel his way out. I stress attempted. Turns out he couldn’t get the door open enough. Instead, he wrestled with a frozen window on the backside of the house and, after winning the match, he hopped out into thigh-deep snow. Several long minutes later and he finally re-appeared in the font of the house and shoveled this path for me through the snow so I could go to work. Thank heavens our generous neighbor again attacked our snow with his front-end loader during his lunch break. I hate to think of what it would be like for Aaron to have to shovel all that snow by hand.

Our front door, opened a crack
Trail from the house. I had to use my bag for some contrast.
Aaron shoveling

Yesterday was Christmas for us. It’s a bit strange being in a country so very different from our own on Christmas. Here in Japan, Christmas is a time for eating Christmas cake and giving gifts to children. Most adults do not give gifts to each other. If they do, in most cases it involves a man giving a woman a gift, much like Valentine’s Day in the U.S. For children, a gift is sometimes placed next to their pillow, not under the tree. Sometimes stockings are hung and then filled, but this seems to be limited to very young children. I asked my junior high students if they would be getting a gift for Christmas and most said, “no”. However, what they will be given is a gift of money on New Year’s Day.

Christmas Cake is, basically, white sponge caked topped with strawberries and other small decorations. Most people do not make Christmas Cake. Instead, the stores are chock full of a wide selection of similarly looking cakes.

Christmas is not a holiday, and I consider us lucky this year in that Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. Otherwise, I would have had to go to work. It’s hard for me to comprehend even having to go to work on December 26th. As we in America all know, December 26th is a day for shopping and returning gifts. Still, we made Christmas special in our own way.

On Christmas Eve, the boys and I made some cookies for Santa, wrote him a note wherein Ridge asked for a candy cane, and left some milk and a carrot (for the reindeer). It had been a long and somewhat trying day as I tried to do some shopping in Monbetsu while giving Aaron some alone time at home. My nerves were a bit frayed and I wanted nothing more than for my darling boys to go to sleep. So, I pulled the oldest, and nastiest trick in the black book of parenting. As our little imps wrestled and played instead of cooperating, I heard myself telling them that Santa wouldn’t come until they were asleep. This, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears. So, I suddenly said to Aaron, with a hushed tone, “Shhh…do you hear that?” I then proceeded to try and convince Ridge and Holt that Santa was coming and they had better get their little bodies into bed and go to sleep. Poor Ridge. He panicked, got into bed, and began to desperately search for reassurance that Santa wasn’t coming yet because he didn’t want Santa to see him awake and not give him his presents. I tried to tell him everything would be fine, but he just kept getting more and more worked up, and eventually began to cry hysterically. At that moment I could hear Santa scratching my name off the list of good mommies and daddies. I think Ridge cried and cried for nearly ten minutes. The poor little guy just sobbed, totally terrified that Santa wouldn’t leave his presents. Aaron finally came in and convinced him that he had written a note for Santa to please come back in a little while and that Ridge was trying very hard to fall asleep. All in all, it still took Ridge about an hour to fall asleep.

But, the next morning, the boys awoke to full stockings, a plate of crumbs, and a lovely note from Santa telling Ridge what wonderful little boys he and Holt are. We open presents leisurely and munched on some pastries I had bought the day before. Around ten, we dressed and went out to enjoy a bit of sun as it reflected off the bright, white, snow. Our walk led us to none other than Seicomart, where we collected the party trays we had ordered. Neither Aaron nor I had wanted to cook, so we opted for the easy solution. Turkey is really rare here, and the “traditional” Japanese Christmas meal is to cook a whole chicken. Usually, finding a whole chicken is a little uncommon. For the past few weeks, though, stores have been full of a wide selection of cooked and uncooked chickens from which to choose. As Americans, the idea of eating a roast chicken just wasn’t very exciting. In Juneau, we were probably cooking a chicken once a week at least. So, instead, we got some sushi (for Aaron), sandwiches, and a tray of chicken skewers.

Let me take a minute to explain the sushi tray. This is very typical sushi. Instead of the rolled up bites you see in the States, these are oblongs of rice with a bit or nori (seasoned seaweed) and a topping. The top row is topped with the eggs from Flying Fish. The second row is topped with sashimi, which means the meat is raw. The white is squid and the pink is salmon. The next row down is topped with Salmon roe (eggs). The fourth row is topped with two smalled cooked shrimp and on either side you can see some omlette sushi. Sushi doesn't have to have to involve fish. The important thing is the rice, which has a sweetened vinegar mixed in with it. The final row is topped with some sort of fish with a sweet sauce. I think it is a fish called Sama, which is very poular this time of year. It is a dark, oily fish.

Sushi tray
Hard candy made to look like sushi
Chicken tray
The Spread
Close up of Salmon Roe Sushi
Close up of shrimp sushi
Ridge, Aaron, and Holt eating

So, we watched a video, ate take-out food, and drank sparkling cherry-apple juice. It was a pretty mellow day.

The Friday before Christmas, Aaron had played Santa at the Komu. We had to order him this suit from an online store because the village’s suit wouldn’t even come close to fitting him. In these photos you can see him passing out small wooden ornaments and having fun. The boys were happy to have an excuse to play at the Komu, and I had the chance to take a few cute pictures. Many of the village kids were playing there on Friday (it was a national holiday – the emperor’s birthday) and we had a good time with them. The younger girls really love it when Aaron plays chase with them. I followed Holt into the puzzle room and began to play with the blocks. Ridge soon followed and created his own little wooden tower. The room is big, and there were about six or seven elementary kids hanging around us, so I got everyone started building a line of blocks to knock down. I used to sit for hours and play with dominoes this way. I would set them up in cool patterns and then watch them all fall down. Well, this was even more fun, as the blocks were big and we had plenty of space. Soon, more kids had joined us and the project took on a life of it’s own. I have a short “movie” shot of the final product, just to get the whole scope of it. After it was finished falling down, all the kids got right to work putting everything back where it came from and cleaned up. Amazing!

Aaron as Santa.jpg
Santa, again
Ridge and Holt posing in front of a little display at Komu
Storytime in the puzzle room
Ridge, Holt, Ryugi, and Kaori
Block structure in the puzzle room
Ridge`s tower
Ridge and Holt posing
Short movie of block creation