Christmas in Nippon

So my Christmas/New Year’s holiday is almost at an end and I return to work tomorrow. Actually, as you may know, the Japanese observe Christmas but don’t actually celebrate it as National Holiday, so both December 25th and 26th were full working days for me.

It wasn’t too bad, to be honest. We had the Kid’s Christmas party on Christmas day which was fun and involved me and my co-worker Rivonne dressing up as Mr and Mrs. Claus.

Myself and Rie prepared a Christmas dinner, as you can see from the photo. We didn’t have Turkey, but managed to get a roast chicken from Carrefour in Makuhari. We cooked up some vegetables, made gravy and stuffing and washed it down with some light bubbly. It was pretty darn good! We also had chocolate fondue with marshmallows and fresh strawberries! De-Licious!

We had New Year off together which was wonderful. On New Year’s eve we had a traditional meal of soba noodles with Tempura (shrimp, pumpkin and sweet potato in light batter) which was really simple yet magical. To see in the New Year as a married man to the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, made me feel really blessed, especially with little baby Mae chan on the way for 2010.

On New Year’s day we headed down to Gyotoku (about 10 minutes by train) to Rie’s parents. They are really nice people and it was a pleasure to spend the day with them. Rie’s mum had made so much food! Fresh mochi sembai (homemade Rice Crackers), homemade pickles, and Osechi (a special New Years bento, see the photo above) that included fresh smoked salmon, hams, sweet shrimps, tamago yaki (Japanese omlette) and other foods.

I have had a truly great week. We also went to Nikko in Tochigi but I will fill you in on that in a different post.

Happy New Year all and have a wonderful 2010.