as usual, it's been a while, but don't they always say better late than never? i'll go with that in order to feel good about bringing you some pictures from Thanksgiving and Christmas last year.
having grown up in Britain, without a specific day of "Thanksgiving", i've never really got into the idea. it's not that i don't like it, just that i don't expect it, so i don't feel like i'm missing anything if i don't get to celebrate it. having low expectations of a day is a pretty good way to do it, i think, because then any festivities seem like a bonus. this was doubly true in Japan, because who expects a turkey over here? there are enough Americans around, however, that a day without a bird would have caused some serious distress in the circles we move in. lucky for them that our friends the Stevensons, who are the Mission Presidents for the Japan Nagoya LDS Mission, decided to have a very comprehensive celebration at their place.
Thanksgiving, clockwise from top left: Jill and i after the stuffing; an inkling of the spread before the feeding; President and Sister Stevenson going the extra mile as hosts to pose with us for a picture; and an enormous plate of sushi brings Japan right into the celebration.
it was a great celebration, with all the traditional dishes and then some. most of the Americans didn't seem to want to taint their authentic experience with any outsider food, so i may have eaten about half of one of those sushi plates by myself; i know i took a good chunk of another one home in a plastic tub.
now a holiday that i did grow up appreciating is Christmas. this was my second Christmas in a foreign-seeming land, after spending it in Samoa a few years ago. here in Japan, the big holiday is the New Year, and Christmas seems to have been imported only to serve the needs of opportunistic marketers (sound familiar?). in any case, we worked our lame jobs (yes, lame: our Christmas "bonus" was a 310 yen box of cookies--that's about $2.70, folks) until the 23rd, and our Korea trip wasn't until the 27th, so we just settled in for a quiet and not very traditional Christmas. nevertheless, there do seem to be some things you can't go without: parties and stockings, to name a couple. fortunately, the wonderful Meito Ward provided the first, and even managed to find a Santa (who, curiously, was white) and a bag of treats for each attendee.
above, clockwise from top left: the Japanese girls love Santa; the feast at the ward Christmas party; thejayfather shows signs of regression, insisting on sitting on Santa's knee at the tender age of 27. Santa was played by our good friend Elder Marlowe; finally the man who prepared most of the grub, Bishop Iwata, a professional chef. in his arms is his daughter Hijiri, who really is just about as cute as can be. below, clockwise from top left: Jill and i sport our new Christmas pajamas while showing off our gift-surrounded Christmas twig. i mean tree; our bling bling watches, gifts from Elder Nelson and his friend DMX in Yonkers, NY; me using our Doraemon (a cartoon character here) stockings in a way they were not likely designed for; and ranch dressing, a godsend for Jill from my dad.
meanwhile, back at the house, Jill decorated with very anatomically awkward Doraemon stockings and a very Japanese (read "small") tree, which we surrounded with the many gifts sent us by friends and family around the world. during this time i was out scouring the local stores for matching pajama pants for the two of us, so we could continue a longstanding Nelson family tradition on Christmas Eve. needless to say, finding something to fit the bill was a lot more difficult that it might have been back at home, but isn't that what the holidays are all about? certainly, over here, we made the best of what we had and it all turned out very nicely, yet again.
having grown up in Britain, without a specific day of "Thanksgiving", i've never really got into the idea. it's not that i don't like it, just that i don't expect it, so i don't feel like i'm missing anything if i don't get to celebrate it. having low expectations of a day is a pretty good way to do it, i think, because then any festivities seem like a bonus. this was doubly true in Japan, because who expects a turkey over here? there are enough Americans around, however, that a day without a bird would have caused some serious distress in the circles we move in. lucky for them that our friends the Stevensons, who are the Mission Presidents for the Japan Nagoya LDS Mission, decided to have a very comprehensive celebration at their place.
Thanksgiving, clockwise from top left: Jill and i after the stuffing; an inkling of the spread before the feeding; President and Sister Stevenson going the extra mile as hosts to pose with us for a picture; and an enormous plate of sushi brings Japan right into the celebration.
it was a great celebration, with all the traditional dishes and then some. most of the Americans didn't seem to want to taint their authentic experience with any outsider food, so i may have eaten about half of one of those sushi plates by myself; i know i took a good chunk of another one home in a plastic tub.
now a holiday that i did grow up appreciating is Christmas. this was my second Christmas in a foreign-seeming land, after spending it in Samoa a few years ago. here in Japan, the big holiday is the New Year, and Christmas seems to have been imported only to serve the needs of opportunistic marketers (sound familiar?). in any case, we worked our lame jobs (yes, lame: our Christmas "bonus" was a 310 yen box of cookies--that's about $2.70, folks) until the 23rd, and our Korea trip wasn't until the 27th, so we just settled in for a quiet and not very traditional Christmas. nevertheless, there do seem to be some things you can't go without: parties and stockings, to name a couple. fortunately, the wonderful Meito Ward provided the first, and even managed to find a Santa (who, curiously, was white) and a bag of treats for each attendee.
above, clockwise from top left: the Japanese girls love Santa; the feast at the ward Christmas party; thejayfather shows signs of regression, insisting on sitting on Santa's knee at the tender age of 27. Santa was played by our good friend Elder Marlowe; finally the man who prepared most of the grub, Bishop Iwata, a professional chef. in his arms is his daughter Hijiri, who really is just about as cute as can be. below, clockwise from top left: Jill and i sport our new Christmas pajamas while showing off our gift-surrounded Christmas twig. i mean tree; our bling bling watches, gifts from Elder Nelson and his friend DMX in Yonkers, NY; me using our Doraemon (a cartoon character here) stockings in a way they were not likely designed for; and ranch dressing, a godsend for Jill from my dad.
meanwhile, back at the house, Jill decorated with very anatomically awkward Doraemon stockings and a very Japanese (read "small") tree, which we surrounded with the many gifts sent us by friends and family around the world. during this time i was out scouring the local stores for matching pajama pants for the two of us, so we could continue a longstanding Nelson family tradition on Christmas Eve. needless to say, finding something to fit the bill was a lot more difficult that it might have been back at home, but isn't that what the holidays are all about? certainly, over here, we made the best of what we had and it all turned out very nicely, yet again.
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